


A little vision of the start and the end

by Hereticality



Category: Sonic the Hedgehog (2020)
Genre: Character Study, Codependency, Food as a Metaphor for Love, Hurt/Comfort, Introspection, M/M, Needles, Pre-Canon, Pre-Slash, Robots, Stone POV, Unapologetic Villain Apologism, a discreet number of obscure references, as metaphor for..., but less than my usual on the grounds that Stone is a pragmatic person, good for when you're like give me the MOST longwinded and meandering fic available, listen this is blatant villain apologism and I wish I cared, motherhood allegories, tagged T for themes and language
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-19
Updated: 2020-12-24
Packaged: 2021-03-02 21:48:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 14
Words: 34,975
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24263839
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hereticality/pseuds/Hereticality
Summary: The Doctor works himself to pieces each time he completes a project. His Agent puts him back together. A reflection on the creation-destruction process, homemade bread, and the intricate rituals of it all. (a.k.a. take an allegory, beat it dead.)
Relationships: Dr. Eggman | Dr. Robotnik/Agent Stone
Comments: 133
Kudos: 107





	1. Flawed Design

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _But the room was so quiet oh  
>  And although I wasn't losing my mind  
> It was a chorus so sublime  
> But the room is too quiet (oh, the fever)_
> 
> ( _Breath of Life_ , Florence + The Machine)

A lot has been said about the calm _before_ a storm.

Sailors’ saying, the impeccable mates of yore—all the way back to the Phoenicians, perhaps? _(A hypothesis to test out. Let’s build a time machine, just you and me. Let’s go and find out.)_ That eerie stillness, the waft of ozone, the air growing denser and charged. The anticipation, that damp prickle deep in your lungs, tugging. Invigorating.

But what about the calm that comes _after?_

Who talks of the oil-still sea, of the clear sky. Of the shipwrecked dragging ashore, parched throats full of saltwater, of brackish air. Who talks of these starving things, these breathing things.

Of a room, a ray of sunlight, the smell of fresh bread.

This is not, after all, a big tradition.

_I didn’t know you were scared of thunder._

_(I’m not. I’m really not. It just reminded me of something.)_

* * *

“This is called a _sacrificial component.”_

A long, black-clad index finger traces over the finely-textured curved metal. White, glossy.

“If hit with enough force, it will fracture all along _this_ line, leaving the underlying structure intact and functional.”

Agent Stone listens and nods. He lets the Doctor run again through every familiar line of this script. As many times as needed.

It’s the two of them—a mad scientist and his secret agent—leaning in close over the empty chassis, breathing in that shiny new coat of paint. Stone follows the Doctor’s gloved fingertip as it smears clear oil across the near-invisible convergence of edges. Elegant, flawlessly aligned. Breakable.

A built-in weak spot.

“This is how the parts will scatter, when the shell collapses.”

Dutifully, Stone looks up. The simulation curves around them, chorion-like, and he watches it cycle through the action, the machine coming apart and back together. Apart and back together.

The fracture pattern frees up the machine gun mounts, the miniature missile launchers. It’s designed to bloom open, deadly lotus of a thing, to keep shooting until it goes down dead.

Sometimes, he’d like it if the Doctor talked to him about regret. _Is it painful?,_ he’d ask. This necessary, built-in flaw. Designing its death into its very conception. _Doesn’t it kill you?_

But not now, never now.

It’s the final two weeks of prototyping. In a mere 72 hours, he’ll have to take a deep, grounding breath and leave the Doctor in isolation to work his magic, run the final stretch alone in his unbreakable deep focus. Even with everything going according to schedule, it’s a very delicate time.

“Now look—come, look here.”

The Doctor keeps herding his attention back, as though it had been dwindling. Stone lets himself be pulled over, to where the inner body of the machine lays suspended on a mount. A blind and shell-less black orb, intubated with cables, its wiring and empty barrels exposed. _Look, look in._

The gloved hand reaches easy into the machine, behind the recess where the camera lens will go once it’s assembled. With the click of a small lever, a second machine the size of a walnut pops right out, coming online with a mosquito-like hum. Caught into the cup of its creator’s palm, it stretches out a three-bladed rotor.

“Did you see that? Like a little spring trap! Doesn’t need any power to work.”

The Doctor bounces the tiny helicopter off, letting it take flight and zip around their heads. He leans away, freeing more space than necessary for Stone to have a perfect, unobstructed view.

“If the parent unit goes offline—the _badniśki_ can still pop right out.” At the edge of Stone’s vision, the fluttering hands mimic the motion, arms spreading wide. “Small yet relentless, a little wonder of _explosive_ perseverance! Determined to complete whatever mission it’s been assigned. This is its _legacy.”_

Stone has seen the schematics, of course. He’s seen every simulation since the first draft. But it’s always different, seeing them come online with his own eyes. Seeing the way the Doctor nests designs into each other, a ceaseless technological ecdysis, incorporating rebirth into their destruction.

Seeing it all just— _work._

“ _Look,_ Stone.” The Doctor grins up at him, already close to feverish. “It’s _mechanical.”_

* * *

Agent Stone has not worked in any other lab so, admittedly, his frame of reference is somewhat limited. However, he has reason to take _very_ little of what he sees here day in and day out for standard practice.

First off, Dr. Robotnik doesn’t _do_ teamwork. Period. With one notable exception, man doesn’t believe in delegating.

The one he’s in is a field with a high degree of specialization—companies liaising for materials, patents, components. Poaching brains left and right. Scalping for contracts, groveling for loose change.

_It’s this bottom-feeder mentality, Stone! All this scraping together of crabs in a bucket… it’s all beneath us. Why, the level we operate at—they’re sewer rats, looking up to the Ohana Floor. They can’t even SEE us._

No, Dr. Robotnik and his unbelievable one-man operation _refuse_ to subscribe to these corporate _Hunger Games,_ thank you very much.

Over here, it’s raw materials in, finished product out. Every component, every piece of software, every PLC script—everything is produced in-house and operates on a closed circuit, allergic to most other systems. As they say, _if you want something done right…_ DEET the pests off your schematics.

It’s just as impractical as it sounds.

The way the Doctor sees it, however, it’s startlingly linear: there are problems. He makes machines. Machines rectify the problems. Why would he taint that perfect harmony with useless backwards compatibility?

So, what painstakingly comes together over months and years through endless testing and tweaking at the hands of entire teams of specialists… Stone’s Doctor can develop on his own in a matter of weeks.

Once he’s taught his automation systems how to build whatever new fantastical contraption he’s _dreamed up—_ Dr. Robotnik says, ever the understater behind closed doors—most of the work is taken care of. With such precise calculations, and the bulk of testing done via state-of-the-art top secret simulation tech, Stone has never seen more than one or two prototypes zip around before a new model is ready for production. Linear, precise, efficient. Nothing wasted, time least of all.

The groundwork of it all has been laid decades prior, built upon layer by layer, upgrade by upgrade. Inspired, Agent Stone had soon taken to breadmaking: this ancient sourdough starter of robotics. Yeast of coding languages, a cookbook of secret recipes, better guarded than most nuclear bases.

While it might happen fantastically fast, though, it’s not _easy._

Just like the man himself, nothing about his process is cold and clinical. It’s deeply personal, physical—nearly _intimate._ Closer to the visceral bareness of artistic expression, than to the predetermined assemblage of wires and metal.

Because yes, of course there are other departments Stone is _reasonably_ sure are not automated—Marketing, Legal, Logistics, the stuff Dr. Robotnik deems too boring to handle personally. And there are _people_ to deal with _,_ sometimes—the teams of agents that accompany them on field missions; the suits Robotnik gleefully strips apart when he’s sent to deal with things no one else can handle; there are witnesses, informers, test subjects…

But during the time outside of missions—the time to bring to life something new and incredible, the time to _create—_ it’s a mad scientist doing the inventing, his secret agent manning the ship, and his dream-team of manufacturing robots against time, physics, the laws of thermodynamics, and God himself.

It’s sort of romantic, really. In some strange byronic way.

It’s not complex, at its core.

A man with a wonderful brain, and a deathly allergy to authority.

There are problems. Bad days of restless busywork, tinkering twenty projects at the same time—except the one he’s been asked to finalize—the vastness of the Doctor’s attention scattered into a hundred little splinters, still bored, unfocused. The highest turnover rate Stone has ever heard of. An infamous history of mental breakdowns and damaged credibility.

Yet, in all his chaos and entropy, Dr. Robotnik is also sort of predictable.

Volatile and short-tempered, yes, but not as erratic as it seems. For some things, as regular as an atomic clock, honest as a raw nerve. If you poke him wrong, you’ll know. If you make a mistake you can learn from, you’ll _definitely_ (and loudly) know. With him, there’s no wondering where you stand.

Dr. Robotnik’s mind is a game of _eithers,_ refusing to deal in anything other than extremes. Cooperative or belligerent. Fully engaged or clawing itself apart with boredom. A Zen garden or a forest fire.

What would it be like, Stone used to wonder, to just _be_ like that? To feel so deeply, and have no defenses against it, to memorize every pinprick of pain as vivid as a near-death experience?

What does it _do_ to you?

Stone has dealt in secrecy his whole career. The change of pace had been a balm to his own raw nerves. _(And if you soothe instead, if you find solutions, if you make_ improvements _... you’ll_ also _know. Even more loudly. Stone couldn’t get enough of it.)_

There are _problems._

Problems need solutions. When Stone had found it, it had been long-overlooked, allowed to grow wild, an out-of-control climber. It sank roots into the drywall, caused structural damage, nearly brought down all that magnificent architecture.

Agent Stone waits on stand-by. A black duffel bag on his shoulder, a collapsed IV stand held _at ease._ Hands joined in front, thumbs interlocked. Resting stance. He scuffs the tip of his shoe onto the buffed resin floor, betraying his nerves, like a greyhound pawing at the starting gate.

Nothing cold and clinical about _this_ process, either. Physical, passes through the body, through the legs ready to sprint. Through the hands and lungs, as intimate as breathing. Inhale, hold. Exhale, hold.

He found a solution. Put a system in place. Not perfect, but efficient. We wait for the signal, the gunshot. _You, and me, and this mechanical lure._

It’s almost time.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter title from Stabilo’s Flawed Design  
> Opening paragraph is a little homage to Drawlight's Salinity, a lost treasure of the GO fandom. Survives [here](https://archiveofourown.org/works/19453660) in podfic form, bless.  
>  _Badniśki:_ Polish diminutive for Badnik, with very affectionate connotation (thank you [Dracze](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dracze/pseuds/Dracze) for the consult <3)


	2. al-Shaytan - Part 1

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A two-part dive into how it started.

The morning of Wrap-up Day, Stone has got up at 03:00 sharp.

Right away, he could smell the ozone in the air, that prickle of static. The night sky burst open on his pre-dawn run, granting him the excuse to luxuriate in the shower for a full 10 minutes. He used the time to exfoliate, and collect his thoughts. Then, he fitted a new blade on his razor and meticulously lined up his edges. As he waited for his first cup of coffee to brew, he downed a green protein shake, took a peek at the main lab’s security feed, and packed a week’s worth of clothes into a neat roll.

Next, he peeled off the condensation-heavy cling film, and punched the air out of the dough he left in his fridge overnight to proof. He split the smooth dome of it six ways, smelling all he’d kneaded into it the night before. His solitude, his restlessness, his worry—folded in with the salt and heirloom starter, with the organic spelt flour.

Off-white streaks on his forearms, on his watch that kept tireless count of this time apart, on the pristine black cuffs of the last suit he’ll ever wear. They say it’s like meditation, breadmaking. Calms the mind.

Stone’s mind just drifts back, no calmer than before.

When they first met face to face, as a strangely convoluted way to let him know what kind of person he’d be working with, the Doctor pinned him in place with his death-laser stare, grinned a malevolent grin—curled tips of his moustache exquisitely framing his laugh lines—and speed-quoted Kahlil Gibran’s _The Storms_ to him.

 _In every city under the sun my name was the axis of the educational circle of religion, arts and philosophy,_ he’d recited, sharp and monotone, accompanying the words with wide arm gestures and an even wider range of expressions. _Had it not been for me, no temples would have been built, no towers or palaces would have been erected. I am the courage that creates revolution in man._

The _al-Shaytan_ passage _._ The dying devil tells a priest, _Without me,_ _the world and your church would crumble._ A _good-cannot-exist-without-evil_ spiel, in the middle of debriefing. He had no idea, back then, how low-key that stunt had been.

At the time, it had been enough to send Agent Stone in a long moment of dumbfounded stupor. The sheer amount of _self-satisfaction_ this guy exuded, the triumphant gleam in his eye, the way he stole the oxygen from your lungs when he spoke. This was a man who _lived_ to make an impression, to dominate the room.

Not at all looking like someone who, Stone had been warned, was instead recovering from some kind of _episode_ that cost millions in cover-up. His handlers gave Stone nothing when he glanced over to them, staring straight ahead.

Perhaps mistaking his incredulous daze for awe, the Doctor had nodded as if to say, _I know it’s a lot, I know. I’ll magnanimously grant you a moment to pick your jaw off the floor. You’re quite welcome._

Agent Stone had never been too precious about his heritage. If he had been, he would have kept his long-buried name, found himself a normal job. Gone into neurosurgery, or real estate law—like his mother wanted. He would have been a family man.

Stone looked at the Doctor, holding that over-intense stare, and all he could think of was full-price parsley.

It was like listening to a textbook speak. Unnaturally correct grammar, uncanny rhythm, no conversationalism. He used classical Arabic, too—overly formal to dialect-versed ears, and far from Gibran’s direct, everyday register.

As far as dominance displays went, it was pretty mild. Compared to what Stone had come to expect over the years, anyway. It wasn’t even one, he later learned: in his disdain for humankind, the Doctor has at least the grace not to nitpick. Closer to aposematism, perhaps, if anything.

He’d found it… endearingly archaic, really. Like a time-traveler, lost on his way home.

In his moment of dissociation, Stone had hallucinated taking this baffling man around the open market, teaching him to haggle. Introducing him to his grandmother. _Look, Teta. This is my moon. He is for my growth, as he is for my pruning._ Grandmother having been dead for years was perhaps the _least_ implausible element in that scenario.

Knead, knead, roll out. Wedges into six neat ovals. He’s done it enough times, now. All stacked in a glass tupperware, held apart by a dusting of flour, by sheets of butcher paper. He can hear it crinkle now, in the side-pocket of his bag, if he shifts his stance.

The rain pelts down on the compound, the TPU glass windows, the roof of the secure quarters above. He can hear it still, in that in-between place just outside the lab door, over the hum of the server room and the layers of soundproofing.

It’s like meditation, waiting.

* * *

The extraordinary—as the word suggests—defies the norm. It’s not easy to grasp, works its hardest to escape definition.

What is easy, instead, is knocking it down to comprehensible terms, punch all the air out of it. Simplify it, until it’s not so frightening anymore, not so distant.

What’s so damn special, after all, about a genius brain? Those few watts of extra horsepower, some higher-quality cabling? Still just one degree removed from an animal, give or take a few astrocytes. Not even that many more than ordinary people. Knock it down a few pegs and there it is, just three pounds of watery fat and misaimed electricity. Battered and fried it would taste the same, would give you prion disease just the same.

 _God._ If he could have just _one_ thing erased from existence, it would be oversimplification. To Stone, the way the Doctor experiences the world is nothing short of miraculous.

A couple months in, after his _unnecessary interruptions_ kept getting him booted from the lab, Stone decided to comb the records for some insight into the Doctor’s design. He was there to Support & Report, after all, and was determined to perform both up to standards.

Stone unearths the core message from pleasantry-laden bureaucratic emails, translates a twitch of the eyebrow into a full sentence, stirs a drop of almond extract into every _matcha_ latte. He was a puzzle fiend, as a kid.

He appreciates complexity, parts forming something greater than their sum. He knew that he would find the patterns, if he kept looking.

The amount of data to get through was... truly _something._ And the byzantine filing system would take him _some_ time to decode.

He had the time. Back then, the Doctor didn’t trust him with anything high-profile. So, between one trivial conference call and the next, he breadcrumbed his way through the Doctor’s project development, and compiled his findings in a neat stack of notes.

As many creatives, Dr. Robotnik performed at his best working in long stretches of unrestricted, uninterrupted deep focus. A flow state, or _The Zone_ , that arose spontaneously if the Doctor found something particularly interesting, and also anywhere between two weeks and two days before a given deadline. 

And right there, he found, was the _Problem._

Combined with the sense of urgency, the starship engines of the Doctor’s mind kicked into overdrive, overriding his aversion to being told what to do, allowing him to get through unbelievable amounts of work in an uncannily short time.

The focus, however, would reach such impenetrable intensity that the man would forget to live altogether, even the basic necessities. A plausible cause for burnout, Stone concluded, circling _flow state_ twice in his notes.

 _I can fix that,_ he thought, his own analytical mind sparking with ideas.

The system took some time to put into place. The charts, the graphs, the progress-tracking. Trial and error. Unassisted, with no supplies and no resources, Agent Stone had to figure out where he could fit, his range of movement. Where to tiptoe and where to run full pelt. Design his own role, prototype it, troubleshoot it. _The tricks we use to make this unruly thing work, keep this wild climber in check._

To this day, when colleagues think that he, too, could use some punching down, they tell him he would have made a great data analyst. Other things, too, just out of earshot. They let him find NNEDV pamphlets in his desk drawers. 

Easy enough to disregard. The extraordinary is bound to escape small minds.

* * *

_Ready, set, go._

04:30 on Wrap-up Day, and it is _time._

Even without the countdown at his wrist, Stone could taste it in the air as he gathers his supplies and hurries through the layers of security to access the main lab.

Taking after its master, Dr. Robotnik’s workshop also defies universal laws. It’s an efficient, open-space layout—clean, sleek, brightly lit. Surgical. A cross between a Tesla ad and an OR, with a sprinkle of USS Enterprise from the 2009 reboot. And voice-activated disco lights. _(Get on our level, Elon.)_

Even now, the lab is fairly clean, stark in all its chrome-alloy orthogonals and enticing rounded edges. The only tells are the corners, where the cleaning bots can’t reach that well, and every elevated surface that’s not been in use. During the tailend of a big project, about a week’s worth of dust, debris, and papers gather there.

Noise reverbs slightly, in the main lab. There are no windows, but the sound of the rain and occasional crack of thunder amplify the bone-throbbing hum of machinery, the eerie echo of a song stuck on repeat _(1447 counts, says the widget to his left.)_

 _IT’S ALIIIIIIVE,_ the Doctor could plausibly cackle, if only the lab had a skylight.

Stone watches him, keeping near the wall behind him, careful not to make a sound before the agreed time.

Of course, he has kept an eye on the Doctor through the security feed throughout the week, but finally seeing the man up and standing… it’s hard to hold back a sigh of relief.

Even now, clad in goggles, a charcoal-with-red-accents jumpsuit, and PPE gear that hangs slightly off his frame, Dr. Robotnik cuts a striking figure. He is fully in his element, the lifeforce of him permeating the space, a perpetual motion machine at the heart of it all.

A lithe mechanical arm lifts the new machine—glossy and spotless in its white shell, smelling of solder and pristine fresh paint—and deposits it in the center of the testing area with a dainty flourish. Dr. Robotnik claps his gloved hands together, spins twice on his heels.

“This is it,” he rasps, hoarse, between jittery cracks of laughter. “Here comes the big one. This is it.”

He straightens up, clears his throat, brings his wrist device closer to his mouth.

“Badnik Prototype, Sweep Sequence test: … begin.”

He wavers slightly, unsteady on his feet, as he skips back behind the hazard line. The tension, the panic, the delirious exhaustion all thrum out of him, crashing into Stone like waves into sea stacks.

Stone stands still, soundless, his worry folded and cut into sixths. He weathers.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter title from [_al-Shaytan_](http://4umi.com/gibran/satan/) in Kahlil Gibran’s _al-’Awasif_ (The Storms, 1920).  
> The other quote is from [_On Love_](http://4umi.com/gibran/prophet/2) in Gibran’s _The Prophet_ (1923), “For even as love crowns you so shall he crucify you. Even as he is for your growth so is he for your pruning.”  
> Many little homages to [IncurableNecromantic’s](https://archiveofourown.org/users/IncurableNecromantic/pseuds/IncurableNecromantic) wonderful work, both here and in the next part. Thank you for making this weirdness click for me.


	3. al-Shaytan - Part 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Part 2 of the flashback dive.

Stone really thought he had cracked it.

The Doctor needed to be in his _zone_ to perform at his own unattainable standards. Tarnished reputation notwithstanding, he had been able to prove himself an essential asset.

True slap in the face of Maslow’s pyramid, none of the elements of how he got it done were _actually_ the issue.

Working hard on something interesting can be exciting, Stone could relate to that. A week’s fast isn’t that big of a deal to anyone used to it. For sleep, the Doctor had trained himself into the _Uberman_ polyphasic pattern, crashing 20 minutes every four hours on a mat under his desk. A skill mastered in college, he said, when he was triple-majoring in Engineering, Mechanics, and Japanese Philology (and a minor in Russian Lit). Stone had tested it himself, with viable results and only minor concussion symptoms. It was a lifesaver on mission, but Stone found it counterproductive in the long run. 

It set a bad precedent. Gave the impression that _both_ of them were man-shaped terminators with no need for rest or sustenance. The brass—already so liberal with any sort of work-life boundary Stone questioned if they considered the Doctor a person at all—were all too happy to treat them as such. Sometimes Stone could _swear_ they were sent on assignments solely because they were the only ones awake to take them.

No, the _Problem,_ the overgrown climber, lay in the combination and simultaneity of those elements.

That, plus the post-deadline time fugue and dehydration, left the Doctor absolutely wrecked on re-entry. With all the years he’d been doing it… just thinking of the long-term damage made Stone’s own blood pressure spike. And then, of course, there were the breakdowns that hit, like clockwork, during the design phase of the next project.

Dr. Robotnik isn’t _opposed_ to change. He likes his routines, and for his things to be _just so,_ but Stone found an early kinship in his ruthless pursuit of betterment. He was confident that if he presented a solid proposal, the Doctor would at least consider it.

It was linear. They _just_ had to improve pacing via strict scheduling and reminders. It would eliminate the crushing time pressure, and dodge the over-intense flow state altogether. Simple. One of those _why didn’t I think of that!_ solutions. 

After all, a smart man like the Doctor could surely see that everything would be easier if he _just_ paced himself better, wouldn’t he?

 _Aww, Agent! Here, let me put a gold star on your homework._ A nasty hiss through bared teeth. Tense, hunched shoulders betraying uneasiness, whole body leaning away from the nice presentation Stone put together. Recoiling, almost. _Such unheard of, groundbreaking solutions! Did you do that all by yourself, or did your mommy help?_

A secret agent that barely knew him, trying to crack him open and shine a surgical lamp inside. See what made him tick. In hindsight, Stone can’t say he faults him for his reaction.

All of the Doctor’s moods and rhythms, all the private workings of his mind dissected on a graph, possible countermeasures sorted by theoretical effectiveness, like fancy specimens pinned in a lepidopterologist’s display. Over the next prototyping phase—a sleek, stealthy aircraft—Stone found his printouts folded under the uneven leg of a workbench.

From bad to worse. A day from their final deadline, exasperated with the radio silence, Stone had to force his way through the security protocols to get back into the still-sealed lab. He found the machine assembled, and the Doctor passed out under its belly.

He’d read about it. Seeing it happen felt like getting pistol-whipped with AT-4. He put aside all rules, spoken and unspoken. He grabbed, shook, slapped. 

Dr. Robotnik—barely conscious, beside himself with outrage over this second violation—exploded into snarling, hyperventilating rage when Stone tried to pull him away from the machine. He had the security system chase Stone out, barricaded himself back in, and did not resurface for another week.

Throughout, the Agent’s phone was blowing up, handlers and contractors demanding updates, check-ins, status reports. His hands kept wanting to shake hours after. He dreaded having to craft a report on this.

Even after, there had been no way to get an explanation out of him. The Doctor treated any attempt to help like a fight to the death. _(Stone had seen poached animals look less wild-eyed.)_ Stone thought he understood then why assistants tended to quit. He started a habit of omitting a lot of sensitive data from his reports. 

He hadn’t known, at the time, that no one else had lasted long enough to even get the _chance_ to interfere.

_Let’s do an experiment, Agent Stone. Just you and me,_ Dr. Robotnik told him sometime after that disaster, making his hackles rise. _You get ONE chance. Design me your most perfect, most mesmerizingly micromanaged, most infallible schedule. I’ll follow it to a T, and let you prove to yourself how uTT-er-ly superfluous you are._

Determined to redeem himself, Stone gave it his all. He broke the project into manageable tasks, tailored to the Doctor’s preferred working hours. He scheduled regular breaks, sleep, fuel-efficient meals. Robotnik followed as promised, and coasted his way through with no crashes and way fewer mood swings.

He even allowed Stone to assist with the project itself for the first time—a hovering stretcher for the military, foldable and lightweight for easy transport. Stone thought it came out perfect. He even felt tentatively proud of himself.

Tragically, according to the Doctor, the work was instead _subpar, uninspired,_ and even (oh no) _tacky._

He aborted the next three assignments, plunging headfirst into a deep creative rut. He rained hellfire on a Secretary that dared compliment the design. He started talking of retirement and apiculture. And he let Stone have it.

_You broke me, Agent Stone. And I let you. Kudos. Congrats. A standing ovation! You might as well have mangled both my hands and lobotomized me. Whatever HR master of sabotage sent you, my compliments. Make sure to let them know._

Stone had not. By that point, his reports were about 86 percent omissions.

He had never failed at anything three times in a row. His ego hurt like a day-old bruise. _(Why couldn’t he crack this guy? What did he want? What did he_ need _?)_ He thought long and hard about quitting.

… but the Doctor was so miserable like that, his creative fire smothered. So utterly alone.

Like Stone, he did not have much outside of work—no family, no extra-curriculars. He liked music, building his machines, working on his research, and little else. Without that, this prodigious creature was lost, purposeless. Broken.

Stone couldn’t just _leave_ him. Not without fixing it. Not without _understanding_.

It started with a fire.

A small one, from a power surge. A fried hard drive and a new model—painstaking, teeth-pulling, uninspired work—corrupted mid-render, before the servers could auto-backup.

Stone had put the fire extinguisher down. Made a stupid quip of some sort, tried to diffuse the tension. He had let the Doctor back him up into a glass panel, shouting an inch from his face, allowed that familiar calm to wash over him. 

It was a _thing_ the Doctor did. Stone preferred it to the seething tension that had been their constant since what happened. He welcomed it. He could work with loud. _Loud never bothered him, anyway._

He held the Doctor’s gaze, nodding, fascinated by the wild shine of his eyes, by the overwhelming bareness of his emotions. The way he got _personal_ with it—but never too much, never too close. Stone held himself still, letting him scream _into_ him more than _at_ him. The anger flowed off him like steam from a crucible, all flushed skin and straining tendons, into his Agent that stood in that sweltering heat and slowly exhaled to dispel it, breath by breath.

 _Yes, Doctor,_ he slipped into a breathing pause, watching the man unravel with fury, fog up the glass behind him. Come apart and back together, apart and back together.

Robotnik had looked at him then. Frowning with his whole face. He ripped himself away, landing at his console. Stone stood there, a little chilly now, feeling the condensation on the panel start to drip into his hair. He witnessed him recover the whole thing from memory, pause to look at it, head tilted back in haughty triumph.

And in one, deliberate gesture, he trashed it. _Starting fresh, Stone! Tabula rasa._

The Doctor needed his extremes, he realized.

It wasn’t the storm that did all the damage. It was the after, the too-deep dive, the too-still sea. Coming up for air with no time to decompress between one thing and the next, the lose-lose choice between scrapping everything lined up, and diving back under to risk an embolism.

The outbursts cleared the fog. They let the Doctor think clearly. Without them, the sheer mass of thoughts and intense emotions simmered and kept him blocked up like an unmaintained chimney.

Stone could just… let him be. He didn’t have to alter the way he’d been working for longer than Stone had been alive. He didn’t have to somehow mold the man into a calm and sensibly-paced little project manager. How did he even _think_ he could cram that uncontainable force into a _schedule?_

He gathered up all his courage. Put down their next deadline as two weeks before what it actually was. He circled it twice on the calendar, used a few tricks to keep the real one a secret. He set up the countdown, and set himself to watch.

There it was, the usual scattering on personal research and side-projects. The moods, the dancing. Then, like clockwork, the focus kicking into gear. Stone—the aircraft episode seared in his mind—forced himself to let him be.

When the Doctor emerged, dazed and haggard, he absolutely refused to believe he had days of _nothing_ at his disposal. He didn’t know what to do with himself. He did not allow Stone to help, but did not fly into a rage either—not even when Stone tried to pass the experiment off as miscommunication up the chain. _(He was used to secrets. He had yet to learn how much simpler it was, to just match his honesty.)_

If the Doctor called his bullshit, he must have been too worn-out to be angry. And he could recognize a _solution_ when he saw one. Like this, there was space for the cycles of creative rush and cathartic release, space for damage-control, space to perfect the project before delivery. Win-win-win situation, with the promise of improvement. A new synergy clicked into perfect, frictionless alignment.

Sacrificial components are simple, in concept. They are there to protect the underlying structure, to allow it to reach its potential. Project managing became the art of controlled demolition, a sort of creative back-burning. _Tabula rasa, Agent Stone!_

Out of it all, with time, arose the whole week of precious free time—rest, very light work, the first green offshoots of _professional_ _rapport,_ unfurling timid towards the sun.

It’s how no one says: four times the charm.

* * *

Agent Stone watches on, silent and tense. It’s not yet the time for fretting. He frets internally, he prepares. Nesting, in his own way.

Always, unavoidable, there’s a moment of visceral doubt. _Will it work? Will it fly? What happens if it doesn’t?_

But they always fly.

With the press of a few buttons and some complex hand gestures, the white-with-black-accents oval machine comes to life in the center of the test area, orange-red camera blinking awake.

Seeing it now assembled and in motion, it reminds Stone of a big, sleek insect. Even the pitch of its hum, high and bee-like in flight and lowering to a pleasant lilting purr as it hovers. It looks efficient, ruthless, and absolutely _beautiful._

Dr. Robotnik seems to agree, Stone notes with tentative relief, eyeing the man dancing from foot to foot.

The drone, a robot designed to replace an interesting amount of roles out in the field, heeds the Doctor’s command and starts scanning the presented samples, mapping a simulation of terrain, locating selected materials concealed around the test area.

Stone watches the Doctor vibrate with excitement, proceeding to test all flight modes and responses. All seems to be in working order, and his heart swells warm with pride. More intense relief, too. If everything is working now, all that’s left is some polishing and fine-tuning—because everything must be perfect on launch or the universe will collapse at its core. If by disgrace there were a problem, despite his body being already at its limit, Dr. Robotnik’s killer focus would reignite until the problem was no more.

In some morbid way, it’s fascinating to watch. It reminds him of the vampiric pregnancy in _Breaking Dawn,_ watching his Doctor grow gaunt and weary as though the sleek lines and hungry batteries of the machine were sucking the life right out of him.

( _This is all getting upgraded,_ the Doctor often says, pointing out some fallacy of his human physiology, _as soon as I develop the tech.)_

There might be music, during that final week, but it’s there to be forgotten in the background. Dancing around the lab and fussing over playlists all come before, during the days of designing, redesigning, 3D modeling, simulations, testing, coding, re-coding. 

The development phase is an interesting time of vitality and energy spurts—but also cravings, mood swings, strange melancholies.

Stone has his own brand of predictability.

He hates them, a little bit. _(He thinks it quiet, secret, not loud enough to hear.)_ After that triple-whammy at the start, a part of him can’t help but resent every single tailend. The risk, the worry, the week-long separation. _The world could lose him,_ he thinks every time. _You better be worth it._

A machine only solves problems. It’s not its fault. It doesn’t make its own choices, that’s the beauty of it. Diligent, untainted by free will. _The technology is neutral_ , they say, you cannot resent a machine for anything it does. _(He’d have to hate the man that programmed it and... well.)_ Maybe he’d just ought to stop falling asleep to _Black Mirror._

In the dreams he gets during tailend, his Doctor beckons Stone to his workbench, where he is putting the drone together by hand, like a carpenter. _Look, Stone,_ he says, reaching effortlessly inside, splaying the machine open like a butchered animal. _It’s mechanical_.

Sometimes, peering close into the Doctor’s work feels like gazing skywards on a clear night.

Stone leans over, ever-dutiful, regards with a thoughtful nod the human heart beating steady within. Polished and pristine, see-through with clear fluid. Flawless. Breakable.

Overview effect. The presence of genius is a powerful equalizer, removing all of life’s pressures. All the anxiety and competition between ordinary people—so utterly meaningless. They’re all idiots to his Doctor, anyway. Crabs in a bucket. What is this tiny Earth, _(Collins said it first—a tiny, shiny, fragile thing. Home on a little blue marble.)_ to the vastness of the cosmos?

 _That’s incredible,_ Stone tells him, looking up from the colorless heart to meet his eye, the razor-sharp intensity that has him feeling both seen and stripped bare, to meet the proud grin that matches his own.

 _Keep looking._ The Doctor opens his arms wide for that perfect, unobstructed view. Punctured through with cables, the clear lifeblood of him fed deep within the sensors and circuitry, the hungry lithium of its batteries.

 _Is there no other way?_ Stone asks him calm, and he tosses in his sleep, hands clawing the air, aching to rip it all off. _Does it have to be like that?_

The Doctor shakes his head, a lock of hair slipping out of its severe styling, framing his eyes in that gentle curve. _This is how it works._ His eyes hold that breakthrough clarity, radiant and serene, eerily warm. _This is my gift. This is my legacy._

_(Morning come, he finds the scratches on his own arms.)_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter title from [_al-Shaytan_](http://4umi.com/gibran/satan/) in Kahlil Gibran’s _al-’Awasif_ (The Storms, 1920).  
> "Obligatory wallpin scene" is a ref to [A Tension](https://archiveofourown.org/works/23826337) by IncurableNecromantic <3


	4. Can't carve a whistle

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Crash time.

“... Agent Stone?”

“Doctor.”

Finally. _Finally._ Stone’s chest gives a creak of relief.

“Been there long?”

“No, not long. Just a few minutes.”

His presence has been acknowledged. It’s ending, the Doctor is coming out of it—the impenetrable bubble he retreats to when his brain takes over and tries to murder its host in the name of science.

“Oh, I’ve cracked it this time, Stone! I’m not even _tired!”_ Still facing away from him, Robotnik thrusts both fists in the air. “I could go on _all night!”_

“It’s—about 5am.”

Robotnik lifts _en pointe_ on one steel toe-cap, and whirls around to face him. Despite the goggles, Stone can _feel_ him squint.

“Time’s arbitrary, Stone. More importantly, look, _look!_ I’ve done it again.” He opens his stance with a flourish, pivoting back towards the testing area as Stone comes up behind him. He does jazz hands at the robot, which gives a chirp in response. “It works!”

The Agent allows himself a smile. Tender, hidden. Silence becomes hard on you, when _this_ is your normal. “I knew you could do it, Doctor.”

“Hah! That makes two of us!”

A glove-clad hand shoots back and fists in his lapels, yanking him around and in. Stone goes with the movement, making quick footwork of it to absorb the excess momentum. He halts an inch from the Doctor’s goggles.

“It all works, Stone, it _performs!_ Nailed on the first try! Oh, oh, I am _abrim_ with ideas—! I want to build the _biggest_ STG ever!” He vigorously shakes Stone back and forth, trembling with nervous energy. “No, wait... a neutron bomb…! Oh, nonono, I know— _a rocketship!”_

His breath smells of xylitol gum and mania. Quite clearly, by this point he’s held upright by the latter and nothing else. Stone discreetly holds out his arms, tensing in preparation. Calibrating for the added weight before it hits.

“Yes, yes, a rocket! I’ll pioneer a _proper_ reusable launch system, that will show _them_ _!”_ There are a lot of _them,_ in moments like these. Stone does not ask to clarify. “How’s that, Stone? Do you wanna build a rocket?”

 _It doesn’t have to be a rocket~_ Stone bites back a groan. “I’d love to build a rocket with you, Doctor.”

Robotnik lets go of him to clap excitedly, a gleam catching in the thick lenses over his eyes. He immediately gets into pacing around and listing things, and Stone takes his cue to crouch down and open his bag.

“Fan _-TASTIC!_ Let’s get to work while the ideas are fresh—we need materials! Graph paper, more duct tape, some fuselage scraps…”

Stone’s watch beeps, alerting him of the finished countdown. He taps the notification off, and asks in a carefully neutral tone, “Would you like to wrap up here, first?”

The Doctor’s mind switches tracks so violently it makes him stumble back, as if yanked by an invisible rubber band.

“Right! Right, right, _right._ Absolutely right, yes.” He leans into his wrist device, proudly declaring, “Badnik Prototype, Sweep Sequence test: complete, with satisfactory outcome! Wo-hoo! Next step—”

The hand that grabbed Stone’s lapel now catches unsteady onto the edge of the workbench behind him. Robotnik shakes his head, face tensing in a grimace. He brings his other hand up to his temple.

“Doctor,” Stone calls, hurrying on his feet, but Robotnik halts him with a raised finger.

“Shhh _-wait,_ this is the _fun_ part. Next step: _ballistics.”_

But before he can give any command, he wobbles, his legs visibly refusing to hold him up a moment longer. With a sudden, forceful motion, he splays himself out like a starfish, and trust-falls backwards into Stone.

"TIMBER!"

A perfect symbiosis of instincts and training, Stone swoops forward, catching him under the arms.

“ _Oop—_ thought I mistimed that, for a sec.” Knees bent, absorbing the impact of Robotnik’s full weight crashing into him. Arms tense, but not rigid. A careful hand to the back of the Doctor’s head, minding the metal edge of the other bench just behind. “Precise as always, Doctor. _Whew.”_

He squats low, easing both of them to the floor. _There you go, I’_ _ve got you,_ he murmurs, probably too low for Robotnik to catch.

“Isn’t the human body the most _fantastic_ machine,” Robotnik says tersely, making Stone huff a little laugh at his familiar snark. He tugs the bag close to them, digging in for his supplies.

“Stone.”

“Yes, Doctor.”

“… Stone.”

He pauses, taking a moment to arrange them into a secure position. 

“I’m right here,” he reassures, nudging until he has the Doctor sitting sideways against him, back propped up on his raised knee, right shoulder in the center of his chest so Stone has his hands free. Practice makes perfect. There has been a lot of practice.

“The lab… it’s _spinning.”_

Hands still fluttering about with leftover excitement, Robotnik has gone deathly pale and shivery in a heartbeat, crashing hard.

“I’m taking your goggles off,” Stone warns, and slips them off the man’s face. His eyes are sunken, bluish with dark circles. It really shows, like this, how exhausted he is. “Any numbness, ears ringing?”

“... uh-huh.” Robotnik turns away from the harsh overhead lights, tapping his ears with both hands. He kicks out his sprawled legs in discomfort. “Stone… make it _stop,_ it’s making me dizzy.”

“Just a blood pressure dip, Doctor. From the dehydration.” Some things he can make better. Some can only be waited out. “If you’ll just hold still a sec—“

“I’m not _finished.”_

Stone brackets his torso with both arms, keeping his touch as light as he can to avoid worsening the overload, and gently lifts Robotnik’s wrist to press his own thumbprint on the device. Right where the pulse would beat, alarmingly rapid, if the arm were bare.

“Try and breathe slow. Give yourself a moment,” he soothes. “We can get right back to testing when the headrush is gone. Which ones are we missing?”

Once he has access and device sync, and the Doctor still responsive and talking to him, he snaps on a pair of sterile gloves and gets to work, taking vitals and feeding them into the computer for scanning and charting. Every time the little tech wonder recognizes him, he feels it. The weight of a misanthrope's trust.

Such a vast thing—so heavy, so fragile. Like a crystal chandelier. It was given to him so gradually, prism by prism. It became easy to carry, such a sweet burden. He barely noticed the change.

Letting the Doctor rest against his shoulder and working around him, Stone zips the jumpsuit open to fish his arm out. Under it, nothing but a black undershirt and far more ribs than he’d like to see. Rather than manhandle, Stone tries to guide the Doctor into each movement he needs him to make. He got it wrong, the first few times, thinking that the Doctor needed him efficient and clinical. All he got were panic, sullen silences, shut lab doors. This, too, is something that needs a slow, patient touch. Practice makes perfect.

Discreetly breathing through his mouth, he swabs Robotnik’s inner elbow with alcohol, and pricks him for a blood sample. Halting his jargon-laden testing walkthrough to let out a low, unhappy sound, Robotnik crashes his weight back against Stone’s supporting leg like he fully intended to flop backwards on the floor. He’s starting to seem really out of it, breath coming quick and shallow, making strides towards a full shutdown.

“Almost done,” Stone says, wrestling his mind out of emergency mode. This isn’t an emergency. There’s time for a moment of reassurance. There’s time to bring him back, wherever he goes. “There’s no need to finish the testing right now. It will be all here tomorrow.”

“N-no.” Robotnik grits his teeth, hauling himself back from that edge and willing his senses into working order. “I _have_ to finish.”

Stone doesn’t fight him on it. “Okay. I need just a moment more.”

“Hurry _up.”_

Waiting for the sample to scan, Stone takes his pulse—weak, rapid—and checks BP via the wrist device. Low. _Oh_ man, hella low. Plummeted, in a way that suggests it was too high before the collapse, racing from one extreme to the other. At least, the rest of the scan comes back _normal._ Doctor-normal, more or less. Spiked stress hormones. Low sugar. Dehydrated like a strip of mango jerky.

“Stone.” The Doctor nudges him. “Are you done? Are you looking?”

Stone extends the IV stand, and hooks the bag of solution on. Despite it all, he cannot help a disarmed smile at that tone.

“I’m done, and I’m looking.”

“Okay, okay—check _this_ out.”

He sucks in a deep, shaky breath, and whistles the first few notes of the _Walkürenritt_.

Dutifully, Stone looks up. The drone, still hovering in the testing area, focuses its red eye on them and pops out the twin guns Stone has seen in the simulation.

“Woah...!”

A few more notes, and the hum changes in pitch, the machine elegantly splaying like a frilled lizard, revealing its four missile launcher turrets armed to the teeth.

Impressed, Stone lets out a whistle of his own, overlapping the drone’s melodic beeping alarm. “You integrated the new voice protocols! I thought you said there was not enough time, last week.”

Robotnik gives him a bright, weary grin. “I made the time!”

He also had originally scrapped the idea as too impractical. _(_ _What kind of idiot_ _is going to stop and whistle i_ _n the middle of gunfire_ _, Stone?!)_ But Stone avoids mentioning it _now._ If it’s important, he’s sure the Doctor will get to it.

“It’s only the fundamentals for now, anyway… but oh, there’s potential for _so_ much more…! This is all _revolutionary_ new technology, Stone! Uncharted territory!”

Stone returns the smile, lets him have this. He cannot resist that happy grin, the joy of innovation still shining in his tired eyes. However difficult it might be, he doesn’t want to imagine a world where he doesn’t get to share this. To be the first to see history get made, bot by bot.

“Makes your heart race, doesn’t it? Can you feel it?”

“I can feel it, Doctor.”

* * *

He would have never thought it was going to be like this.

Agent Stone expected his relationship with his assignment to be cold, professional. He had been warned it was a… challenging one, so perhaps something cordial, at best, if he could manage to carve it out. Exchanges. _Good morning_ _, how was_ _your weekend? Goodbye, drive safe._ Nice wine on Christmas, water cooler pleasantries. Meaningless small talk. The _weather_ _._ He expected it to stay walled up, a little fortress of a dynamic.

But there’s no cold and impersonal with Dr. Robotnik. The man is warm the way a grease fire is. Communication is often _scorchingly_ personal. There are no lids to press on.

It’s a matter of efficiency, that’s all. Perfect synergy and compatible workaholic habits are bound to make for a lot of time spent together. That, and a somewhat poor handle on personal boundaries. Nothing worth overthinking.

There are rumors, of course. There are always rumors. A lot of the things they do take on an odd light, and there would be rumors about much less. It would be easier to explain, actually, if they really—would be easier to punch down and fit into some squalid little category. Something no one would bat an eye to.

Bolder than rumors, there are questions.

_What do you get out of putting up with that? What did you do to get sent there? Do you ever think about killing him in his sleep?_

A smile. Same muscles, different subtext. Canidae and humans do not share the same appeasement behaviors. _O_ _h_ _,_ Stone laughs, baring his teeth still, _I’m not sure he ever sleeps._

 _(How long could_ you _go, knowing someone so up close and personal, being trusted so completely_ — _without getting compromised?)_

A row of anonymous hotel rooms, a row of anonymous missions. The heavy dip of a body next to him, black-clad, fully dressed on top of the sheets. Hands stacked together, unheld. The shadow of dark lashes on the sharp swell of a cheekbone, uncaressed. The weight of things implied, unaddressed. All held back, in the barely-there brush of knuckle against gloved knuckle. 

Null boundaries. Less than one inch of distance might as well be a light year.

_(From the heights of his enlightened mind, the good Doctor might be the only one in the dark.)_

Stone barely remembers a life before, how a plain professional relationship is supposed to work. A life where he doesn’t have this intricate, pure, fragile thing to keep him company at night, held closer than the gun under his pillow.

 _What, of course I poison-check the food,_ he’d further reply, if he found himself with time to waste. _That’s just being a good assistant. Of course I pick up the phone at 1:30am on a Saturday, what if it’s an emergency? What if it isn’t? Of course I rub the aching temples, the sore hands, of course I pop the bones back into place when needed. Of course I understand him when he talks—what, like it’s hard?_

_Why, what do you guys even DO all day?_

He hadn’t expected to become, in no time at all in the grand scheme of things, the drawbridge between a complicated man and a world that does not understand him.

He hadn’t expected to have his input asked, his strategy and organization skills ultimately valued, his eyes bored into with that scorching intensity that demands, _Don’t tell me what I_ _WANT_ _to hear, Agent._ _I know what that is, you know what that is. No, d_ _o what you’ve never been afraid to do_ — _what you do best. Tell me what you SEE._

 _I see the extraordinary,_ he says out loud, in many forms. In the privacy of himself, he says different things. Quiet things, secret things. Prayers, almost.

 _We don’t live in biblical times._ _But y_ _ou breathe into them, and they come to life. I see all the work that goes into it, and it still feels like magic. I never thought I’d get to see Creation with my own eyes._ _I wasn’t expecting to love them._

_(I want to see it. I want to keep seeing it. I want to—)_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter title from Florence + The Machine's _My Boy Builds Coffins_


	5. 'Cause all the walls of dreaming

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Closer, closer, and closer still.

Fire-power is truly impressive for the size, bordering on unbelievable. Auto-aim, too, seems to be surgically accurate.

Weapon reload time is a tad slow. Stone avoids mentioning it. It’s an easy adjustment, anyway.

“It’s beautiful, Doctor,” he praises. He slips their earmuffs off and sets them down by his discarded gloves, taking in the test area reduced to a smoking heap, the drone’s red camera shining through like a fog-light. “Stylish _and_ deadly.”

Still propped up against him, Robotnik chuckles. “No two adjectives go better together!”

“Indeed.” Stone lets him finish inputting the test records into the computer. “Once again, you’ve outdone yourself.”

The proximity makes his full-body twitch of delight travel right into Stone, through the spine and lungs and heart, as if generated by his own muscles.

“I have, haven’t I? Are we in time with everything?”

“We officially made our internal deadline.” Stone taps his watch. “You’re on the dot with the prototype—needless to say—and I have everything lined up on my end.”

“You’ve wrangled all those camo-clad cretins and corporate clodpates into order with your usual zeal and _punctualis,_ Stone? Showed them all who’s in charge?”

Stone smiles, shrugging light. He angles himself to absorb, sunflower-like, that radiance of joy and praise. Tingly, lightheaded. “I have. I’d say it’s a wrap.”

The Doctor finds the strength to lift his arm in a triumphant, if desperate, fist pump. “Hell yeah…!”

They high-five. Robotnik allows himself a whole ten seconds to bask in the accomplishment, dazed and breathless as a marathon finalist.

“Now, _actual_ deadline, Stone. Out with it.”

“Are you sure you want to know now?”

A spasm. The Doctor’s face immediately loses whatever little color had started to come back.

“It’s not _today,_ is it?” A long, unsteady hand catches Stone’s face, uses his mandible as a climbing hold to try and pull himself up. “Open your mouth, and tell me it’s not today. If it’s tomorrow I can do it—if it’s today you better have a benzoylmethylecgonine shot for me in that bag.”

 _Oh God._ “It’s… definitely _not_ today. It’s in four weeks, Doctor, as per the last adjustment.”

“Are you _certain?_ ”

“I swear on the absence of Einstein’s grave, sir.”

Robotnik deflates all at once, like his bones have turned to jelly. His back thumps heavily against Stone’s supporting leg again, his gloved grip dragging dramatically off the Agent’s face. Stone stretches his jaw, shaking off the sting on his skin.

Like mind like body, a game of _eithers_ here, too. Now that the tests are over, in a matter of seconds, the Doctor is shuddering head to toe and pouring sweat, lips going bluish in his waxen face. This last scare for sure didn’t help, either.

“ _Aaand—_ now look at that shock, setting in _record_ fast,” Stone mutters to himself, trying to diffuse his own nerves. “Guess that rocket’s gonna have to wait, huh.”

He shakes the thermal blanket open, draping it carefully over Robotnik’s shoulders, kicking himself for not doing it sooner. For his clumsy wording. For the _sir_ that still slips out sometimes. Even the lightest step will crush _some_ eggshells, sure—but if he’s ruined it _now_...

“I didn’t mean to startle you like that, Doctor,” he tries. He waits a beat, then reaches into the open jumpsuit, places a spread hand in the center of the Doctor’s heaving chest.

“I have the paperwork right here with me.” Stone pushes slightly down with his hand, grounding. The sternum under his palm rattles like it’s keeping in some trapped, flighty creature. He can feel the skin grow cold and clammy through the thin undershirt. “Would you like to check?”

Robotnik catches his wrist, holding on, hunching into the blanket. “No, you _menace.”_ He snarls, “I want your _hand._ ”

Despite the tone, it’s not an order. Stone indulges, his other hand still a bit cool from holding the metal stand for a while. The Doctor makes an open, throaty groan of relief when he gently presses it to his overheated forehead.

Stone’s brain stutters out of worry and onto that near-obscene noise, tripped up like a bike over tram tracks. Catalog, file away for review. Compartmentalization is survival.

“Better?” He feels the nod into his palm like the nuzzle of a cat. He swallows, flexes his shoulders against the shivers down his spine. “Good. Plenty of time before we have to finalize and deliver, Doctor, I promise.”

Robotnik accepts this with another nod, breathing out, drifting slightly against his shoulder. He does not let go of his wrist.

“Wait, Doctor.” Stone shakes him, ignoring his frustrated grunt. “Not yet. Hold on a little bit longer. Just a little.”

“No, I don’t want to. My head hurts,” he complains in a faint, unsteady hiss, pulling his knees up to curl into him. “… everything hurts.”

Stone takes a deep, steadying breath. It’s his job in this to receive the small confession, witness it, dispel it with no judgment. Physical pain and discomfort are often exceptions to Robotnik’s ease of expression. He gathers the Doctor up closer, brushes the disheveled hair to the side to feel his forehead with his lips. The scan will tell him the exact temperature in a second, but he does it anyway.

“Fever?”

“Most likely.”

It’s nothing uncommon, no reason to be alarmed. The Doctor might be bedridden for a couple of days, even, just like a real bout of sickness. His body so desperate for rest, so stubborn it’s trying to fight stress by setting it on fire.

Salt on his lips, Stone murmurs, “You _are_ really warm.”

Robotnik fits his burning forehead in the crook of his neck. When Stone’s hand lifts to cradle the back of his head, he lets out a shaky sigh. He lets go of Stone’s wrist to skim light over his clothes, unsteady fingers digging in, trying to anchor himself.

"You smell clean," he notes, voice drowsy, with a sort of factual approval. “Talcum-y.”

Stone holds back a small snort. "Thanks, I showered. It’s shea butter."

"Hm. _Touché._ " He pauses, fitting his nose up into his beard and breathing in with no shame at all. His mustache tickles a shudder out of him. "You always smell nice. I appreciate it."

Stone shakes his head in mild disbelief, and lets his thumb stroke light over the line between sweaty bare skin and week-grown fade. It’s just the perfect buzzcut length to feel unbearably soft to the touch. He lets out a sigh, too.

He wouldn’t dare call this affection. Wouldn’t insult it by calling it _rapport_ either. Very far from professional, all this. He wishes he knew what to call it.

_(Can affection have a purpose? Can you optimize it for speed and efficiency? What are the fuel options? Let’s find out, just you and me. Let’s go on a journey and find the line, the boundary. I just want to be sure.)_

“But Doctor, overall are you feeling okay?” he asks in a quiet, serious voice, as they shift and settle in this _closeness,_ whatever it is. “Anything broken or out of place?”

Robotnik shakes his head, slow. “Just… sore. Pins and needles. Lactic acid aplenty.” He lifts up slightly to squint at him. “What makes you think that I’d—”

“You dislocated your shoulder, just three months ago.” Until it was pressed flush to his neck, it felt like scalding liquid poured into his carotid, going straight to his head. Stone blinks to shake the dizziness. “You did not tell me—for a number of hours.”

“... I didn’t notice. But this project didn’t require much heavy lifting… I’ve been able to exert more care.”

“Okay, that’s—yes, good. Thank you. A relief.” Stone breathes out. With the hand not busy supporting the back of his head, he tugs the blanket a little more snug. “Then we can do the usual, some stretches, and then you can sleep, I think.”

“I can _sleep?”_

The crack in his voice comes at Stone like a throat-punch. He looks down, meeting the chestnut eyes so uncharacteristically hazy—just a touch too bright.

Robotnik likes to be patronized just as much as anyone, but Stone has found out that, especially like this, he tolerates a disconcerting amount of _babying._ Sometimes, in some way, he even seems to invite it.

“Of course,” he reassures, holding a little tighter, stroking gentle through that too-soft hair. He indulges. “You did amazing, and you’re all done here for now. A little nap, then something to eat when you’re ready. Sounds good?”

The words have barely left his mouth and _oh._ What wouldn’t he give for his Doctor to look up at him like that _just once_ while he’s _not_ near-delirious with exhaustion.

“And you’ve made it for me? Your _specialty?”_

Stone’s brain stutters on this too. Is it the first time he hears it acknowledged? It might be. He manages an unsteady half-smile, warm, touched.

“‘Course. I—uh. I’ll have it ready for when you wake up.”

* * *

His _Teta_ had been the one to teach him, originally.

It should have been his grandfather’s job, she said. If only he had been there to do it. But we make do.

The ingredients were different there, she said. All the way across the ocean, mountains swapped for other mountains. It’s not the same. You couldn’t find _akawi_ easily, back then. But we make do. The heart is the same, and nothing matters more than that.

The starter that came with, its long journey in dehydrated crumbs, the patient nurturing back to life. Then split into three, one per child. A gift of legacy.

He used to watch her hands, trying to decipher the puzzle of it, the pattern. Grandmother pulled the fermented _ajin_ ball from the bag of flour, worked it into the rest of the dough. Smoothed it with oil, sprinkled it with salt. Off-white streaks on her wiry forearms, and her frail voice speaking of the day his mother was born. Early in the morning, full-throated as a spring bird.

When she thought about family, about togetherness, that’s what came to her mind. A room, a ray of sunlight, and the smell of fresh bread from her husband’s hands. What else could be closer to the heart, after all, than food made by your beloved, by the person that knows you best?

When the time had come, she had taught Stone’s would-be-father, his two would-be-uncles. _But I’m teaching you early,_ she’d told Stone, calling him by that name long-buried. _It’s better to be prepared. And you’ve always been so good at nurturing things. You’ll remember._

He did remember. Often, he had wondered what got lost, from her use of language to his own, split three ways since birth. If he could be a poet of the in-between, like Gibran before him. He was made here too, after all, on this side of the ocean, with different ingredients. Was the heart the same? It’s too late to ask, now. He’ll have to make do.

He didn’t feel too guilty for putting that skill aside, for letting the heirloom starter dehydrate in a half-forgotten glass jar, once he realized that particular tradition was unlikely to continue with him.

It’s not a big tradition, anyway. Nothing to betray, uphold, defend. Nothing really _special_ , just a small family quirk.

_(What he’s doing now instead, the way he has resumed it and adapted it to the closest thing he’ll ever have in his life to—)_

He cannot tell. He can never confess what it _means._ Compartmentalizing is survival, and this is too risky, too close. A shocking way to open up about himself, exposing all there is, like a man with nothing to lose. A slightly desperate reach, uprooted creature to rootless one.

_Calm down. Keep it together._

It’s not, after all, a big tradition. It’s just breadmaking. A neotenous trait in culinary form.

It doesn’t need to _mean_ anything.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter title from Florence + The Machine's _Blinding_


	6. Blazing like sirens

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Heart to heart. Brain to brain.
> 
> (TW for needles/cannulation details)

“Doctor, I’m taking your glove off now.”

Due to the position they’re in, and the way he has to twist his head to see where he needs, Stone’s lips rest against the man’s temple. He feels the nod more than see it.

The command gloves and wrist device now rest on Stone’s leg, within sight. He lifts the Doctor’s arm again, ties the tourniquet one-handed, waiting for the veins to pop. Clad in a new pair of sterile gloves, Stone’s steady hands make quick work of another alcohol swab, of pushing the air bubble out of the saline flush, of preemptively breaking the cannula seal so it won’t get stuck.

Despite the warning and count to three, the Doctor snaps his jaw on a snarl, twisting out of his hands.

“What damn gauge is that?!”

“It’s an 18.” Stone can feel the sweat gather inside the latex gloves, opens and closes his hands. “Second fastest fluid transfe—”

“I know what an 18 is, Stone!”

No matter how many times he has done it, Stone’s heart is always in his throat. The Doctor gets agitated and irrational, twitches away at the last second, and his veins are pressed flat with dehydration, hard to stick even with the infrared. _If you’d drink at least_ some _water during the week you’re in here,_ he thinks, biting the inside of his lip in frustration. _Then I wouldn’t have to do this to you._

How easy would it be to avoid it? As easy as scheduling water breaks into the unbreakable focus. As in, not a chance.

It’s not ideal, as a solution. Risky, no matter how careful he is. And no matter how pre-agreed each step might be, it’s still force he has to use, it’s still painful and stressful. Two of the last things he wants his hands associated with, up there in Robotnik’s inescapable memory. _Selfish,_ he scolds himself, gritting his teeth against how wrong it feels to test his strength against the Doctor’s in any way.

Exasperation bred inappropriate questions, one of the first times. _How did you even get any of your shots done, as a kid?!_ And their unavoidable, snapped answers. _They held me down, obviously._

_(Heavy, uncomfortable silence. If regret made a sound, it would be that.)_

“I know,” Stone says, pausing for a moment, feeling Robotnik’s stare on him, sharp and wide-eyed despite the fever and exhaustion. “I don’t like it either. But if you stay still for me _just a second,_ I can get it done and over w—”

“ _No—!”_

A melodic beeping above them makes them both jump. Stone looks up to face the new drone, splayed open, aiming its full arsenal at him. _Threat Detected,_ flashes the device on his thigh.

“... uh.”

Robotnik shakes his head clear, and eloquently instructs, “Just… press the middle thing on the thing there.”

Sweat chilling under his collar, Stone inputs the command, eyeing the drone as it stops beeping and disarms. He quietly breathes out.

“That’s… uh. It’s quite reactive.”

Dr. Robotnik pointedly refuses to acknowledge it, tensing all over as Stone brings his attention back to the task at hand. The drone’s response has distracted him enough that he manages to hold still, arm stiff and fist clenched against the sting of the needle. Stone quickly checks the flow and pulls it away, carefully holding the cannula down with a finger to screw the extension and line into place without getting blood everywhere.

“Okay… okay. We’re all set.” He catches some spill on a cotton pad, watching the area around the injection site for swelling. “Do you feel any burning around here?”

“No.” Every hair on the Doctor’s arm is standing on end. He looks about ready to jolt out of his skin, quivering and struggling to catch his breath. “Just… the cold spreading up.”

“Good.” Stone nods. He tries not to think of the _noise_ it pulled out of him, of how hard he flinched. It felt like trying to hold onto a live wire. “That means the solution is getting in correctly.”

“I _know,_ Stone.” He barely holds still long enough to let him tape the line in place and untie the tourniquet. “Oh, we’re done already? Why, _so_ many nerve clusters there in my antecubital fossa you still _haven’t_ jabbed a cannula into.”

Stone bites hard into the meat of his cheek. He pulls his hands away, gives him a moment.

“Soldier’s hands, I know. They’re kinda rough.” Easier this way, despite the coppery taste in his mouth. “Thank you for being so patient with me.”

The IV solution was concocted by the Doctor himself, tailored to the milligram to his body’s needs—saline, minerals, electrolytes. Some vitamins, the littlest bit of sedative. A lithium-infused lifeblood fed into his dry vein as rain into a drought-struck riverbed. Pulling him back from the brink.

It’s the whole point of the system—letting him work as hard as he needs, crash as hard as he needs. The Doctor’s time to fall apart and trust his Agent to put him back together. Trust him to do what needs to be done, no matter how heavy.

“Doctor?”

Agent Stone listens, concerned, to those fast and shallow breaths, coming in searing little puffs against his neck. To try and help him slow down, he takes the Doctor’s other hand up to his own face, a cage of bare fingers to his mouth.

“Deep breaths,” he murmurs. He inhales for six seconds and exhales for eight, letting him feel it on his palm. “With me. Come on.”

Bodies don't know that evolution happened. Generations after the last death by claw and fang, a long exhale still means _we have time. Rest here, catch your breath._

_(I’m here.)_

They slowly fall into sync, evening out. “That’s it. Slow and steady.”

 _Horizon’s clear,_ Stone’s breathing pattern spells out. _I’ve checked for you. Nothing is chasing. Nothing will._

_(You’re safe, safe, safe.)_

The hand on Stone’s face slips up and out of his hold, in search of more grounding textures. It traces light over his skin as Stone shifts and settles them again—taking off the clammy latex gloves, pulling the stand closer, tucking the blanket smooth and even—rakes patterns into his short hair, his sideburns where it fades short at the hinge of his jaw. _Is there where I will break apart,_ Stone wonders. _So I can keep shooting as I go down?_

When the Doctor seems settled enough, focused on his rather pleasant tactile exploration, Stone takes a minute to double-check security, reassuring himself they’re completely alone in their avant-garde fortress. A mad scientist, his secret agent, their systems set to high-alert. _Nothing’s chasing._

He checks the IV line too, making sure the flow is steady, not too fast. All good. Done with anything he might need high-visibility for, Stone can finally dim the harsh overhead lights. He uses the wrist device to bring them down to an eye-resting red, immediately suffusing the lab in an amniotic cocoon of penumbra. To his own relief, he feels the Doctor relax minutely.

As soon as his eyes adjust, however, he catches a glimpse of the injection site. He gasps, staring at the bruise that expands bluish-red on the undefended paleness of Robotnik’s inner elbow.

“Oh, damn—look at that,” Stone hisses, heart sinking, folding in to cradle the arm with a barely-there touch. “This is a _disaster._ Oh God. I’m sorry.”

Blinking out of his trance, Robotnik spares a dismissive look at it. “Hm. It’s just some subcutaneous hematoma from the spill, Stone. You’re _not_ a registered healthcare practitioner, after all. And I... do tend to be high-strung.”

Ever the understater, his Doctor. Stone swallows hard. For a moment, with the weight of everything, he feels that uncontrollable sting behind his eyes and _almost_ wants to let it out.

Under the veil of darkness and Robotnik’s gradual return to lucidity, he goes for the tangible and practical. “We… uh… we could go down to a 20 or a 22 gauge next time, if this one is a bit too much.”

The Doctor, his other hand still by his head, responds with a huff and a light, painless slap.

“Stop _fretting._ I can take the 18. It’s right there.” He gestures to it, frowning. “Taking it, as we speak.”

“Yes, but—” Stone takes a breath, restarts. It’s a bit easier, in this low light, but not by much. “Doctor… we are not in a rush. We designed this to _avoid_ that. If the smaller gauge takes longer and we have to sit here another hour, I’m up for it.”

The Doctor hums, tilting his head. “More experiments, hm? Perhaps I’m too used to being in a rush,” he muses. “Doing everything as fast as possible, even when it… takes a toll. That neural path… that’s a deep one, fellas.”

Near-desperate, Stone stabs at humor. “… neural Mariana Trench?”

 _Ba-dum-tss._ Robotnik makes a pained, choked groan and lets his eyes fall shut, with an expression of such exaggerated sorrow it’s hard not to laugh in relief. “Didn’t think you had it in you, Stone. Dealing a blow like that when I am impuissant to get up and leave in dignified outrage. Ruthless.”

“You could say… it was a _low_ blow?”

The poor man just gives up, going limp against him. “Shut the _hell_ up, Stone.”

Stone buries a sniffle in a faint snort, carefully drawing his arm around the Doctor to hold him up.

“You know, if you’re tired of the IVs and want to test something different... that’s fine too,” he says, sobering. “My schedule’s open. Anything you need.”

“You really hate doing it?”

“I hate hurting you.” _Shit._

“Ah.”

So that just… came out, huh. _Where’s your training when you fucking need it._ It’s the closeness that kills him, the casual way Robotnik leans into him. Tears his guard down like a battering ram, leaves him wide open.

 _Well, fuck it._ Might as well go full earnest. “I know this is not easy for you, in general. You let me get away with a lot.”

Robotnik rolls his eyes, instantly catching on his guilty tone. “We’ve discussed what happened a thousand times, Stone. It was years ago.”

“Less than two. And I still—”

“You know I have no patience for apologies.”

“Of course, yes, you consider them—“

“—a _huge_ waste of time, yes,” Robotnik cuts him off a little harder, set to make a point. “They’re a bunch of meaningless set phrases people parrot at each other to make themselves feel better… while that time could be _much_ more efficiently invested into _being_ better.”

Stone nods. Message received, loud and clear. This is not the time to rope the Doctor into reassuring him that he’s doing an acceptable job. He’ll have to tough it out.

“Alright. But, just as a reminder… if you could use an _actual_ break—you just say the word and I’ll step out and give you a moment.”

Robotnik leans away to fix a hard stare on him, his eyes near-black in the low light.

“N-not that I’d _want_ to step out,” Stone stammers. _So much for toughing it out._ “You know I’d never leave your side, if I could.”

 _Are you quite done,_ says the unimpressed lift of the Doctor’s eyebrows. “Really.”

“Okay, that was… what I mean is—I’m never, ever going to do something against your wishes, Doctor.” No, apparently. Not done. The saline flows, and so does Stone. He can’t find the brakes of this runaway train, can’t bottle himself back up. “I’m not here to make a stressful thing worse. The last thing I want to do is... push you or overwhelm you, or—”

“I don’t need _reminders_ ,” the Doctor snaps, pointedly avoiding eye contact. He gets his IV-less arm around him, pressing close again. “I am _fairly_ smart, you know. Keep it together, and trust me to remember things. Yes?”

Stone lets that stolen relief wash over him, undeserved but _oh_ so warm. “Y-yeah. Okay.”

After a while, when he’s let the panic shake out of him and he’s filed away the rest, he quietly asks, “Is it getting a bit better, at least?” He feels the Doctor reach up, grabbing weakly onto his shoulder, right by the old wound there. “How are you feeling?”

Robotnik takes a moment to sort an answer out. He ends up with a long glance at the hovering drone, a tighter grip on Stone’s blazer, and an unsteady murmur.

“… h-hollowed out.”

“Oh.” Stone carefully pulls closer in return. He has inferred, of course, but the Doctor has never shared that feeling before. He said it so quiet, like a shameful secret. “Can I help?”

“There’s no helping it.” The Doctor clears his throat lightly. “It’s inevitable. Always a part of all this.”

“We just wait it out, then.” A moment stretches, long, and full, and quiet. “Do you want music?”

“Of course I want music.”

Instrumental. Slow, calming stuff. Stone has it pre-selected, of course. He only has to press a button.

As the music starts playing from his mini-speaker—doesn’t hold a candle to the lab’s sound system, but he needs something portable—he pauses.

In this cave of wonders where the systems only like to speak to each other… his name-brand, unassuming, off the shelf Bluetooth speaker can apparently now one-click connect.

And not only that, but also access the Doctor’s private playlist database.

“... huh.”

The music washes over him in a new, freer light. If he asks about it, the Doctor will say something caustic about his music taste. So just lets it be. Leaves it warm, and unsaid.

Maybe he needn’t worry so much—maybe it really is just the two of them, sitting on the floor in a secret lab holding onto each other, against a world that does not understand them. Insignificance overcomes him, looking up at the vastness of the lab, its eerie echo, the beauty and complexity of everything in it, feeling like a child at the foot of a cathedral.

All of it, all of the incredible things in it—was built by one man, the one resting exhausted in his arms. Designs as a divine twinkle in his splendid mind, realized through the blood and sweat of his fragile human body.

No one should see this, see him like this. No one has the _right._

When a crash of thunder makes the lights flicker, he instinctively pulls closer with his bracing arm, not a thought spared for the boundaries they both don’t get.

“Your hands aren’t rough at all, Stone,” the Doctor says in a whisper. “You are... always very patient with me, too.”

Stone smiles, turning his head away, his cheek resting light against the Doctor’s temple. “It’s my pleasure.”

His hand rests over the blanket, rubbing careful circles into tense shoulder-blades. His other hand still encircles the offended arm, its hold feather-light, reverent.

“Well, _nurse,_ do you reckon I’ll live…?” Robotnik asks, so close in the near-darkness, with a sort of worn-out playfulness that startles Stone from his musings. The gentlest of jabs.

“It’s unlikely,” Stone jokes along, meeting him wherever his seesaw moods take him.

The Doctor chuckles, a guffaw all high in the nose. “Aw, now _that’s_ a conundrum.” The arm around Stone reaches up to the back of his head, fingers shaping to his skull and pushing in, lightly knocking their foreheads together. “Will you remember me, Stone? Will you take care of the little ones?”

“Of course,” he promises, helplessly falling into that touch that blurs joke into sincerity. “Anything you need.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter title from _Disarm You_ by Kaskade ft Ilsey


	7. There can be no life without it

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Crumbling.

“How—how much longer?”

“Almost there. Try and pull your arms back into a scapular squeeze, that should help.”

Stone carefully guides the movement. He is equally careful with his wording, avoiding any reminder that the Doctor chose to do the stretches with his IV still far from done.

“Try not to bend your arm too much.”

“Stone, if you don’t _try_ to zip it—”

Robotnik pushes his shoulder-blades together, making his spine pop in an alarming number of places. The movement draws a clenched-teeth groan out of him. Stone’s eyes dart to the drone, still hovering a few feet off the floor where they’re still sitting. It doesn’t seem to have registered anything.

“Ugh. You should just deck me right here.” He slaps the nape of his neck tipping his head back with a hiss of pain. “When you see me do this dowager’s hump nonsense.”

“Doctor, I’d have to deck you all the time.”

Robotnik huffs. “What kind of physical therapist are you? The least you could do is deck me when I ask you to.”

When he rolls his shoulders, they crunch like there’s gravel between the joints. It’s nails on a blackboard to Stone’s ears, triggering a synesthetic ache in his own shoulder. He shifts uncomfortably.

“An unlicensed one.”

“Psh. Pathetic.”

Stone shakes his head with a small snort. It’s not easy. The process asks of him the steel-nerved precision of an Agent, but will not let him detach and fully get himself to that space. He needs to remain open, let his instincts navigate through the Doctor’s responses. He needs to hold himself in that in-between space, that tightrope of control.

“I’m going off a course I took ages ago, and my own physio,” he says. “I can’t get licensed if you don’t give me time off for it.”

“Hah! Nice try.”

He needs a break, Stone can hear it in the pitch of his voice. He brushes the back of his knuckles down his spine, feeling nothing but myofascial knots. “That should be enough. Take it easy, Doctor.”

Robotnik hums, flopping heavily back into his chest, knocking the breath out of him. Rehydration doing its thing has given him a bit of second wind, probably why he wanted to get the stretches out of the way. He stays still just a few seconds more, then holds his hand out to the still-hovering drone.

“C’mere,” he calls, a ripple of delight going through him at the immediate answering chirp. “Yes, you, you little scamp. Come, let me see you.”

The hum picks up slightly in frequency, and the red lens widens to put him into focus. The machine moves closer as requested, until it touches the outstretched hand. With the most tender, _Hello, there~_ ever uttered, the Doctor swaddles it up in the blanket, as if it needed the warmth more than he does.

Stone’s hands feel a hot draft as he shuffles to the side to make space. He follows it to the back of the machine, cooling system pushing hot air out its twin ports like the exhale of a living, breathing thing.

“It won’t overheat, will it?”

The Doctor _tsks_ at him with a soft click, without turning. “ _Of course_ not. It can thermoregulate better than any of us,” he coos, proud, the immensity of his attention all taken with the drone that settles itself sideways in his open arms, streaking him gray with gunshot residue. “Amongst other marvelous things.”

Everything the drone does is predetermined, written down in its programming. But the real wonder of advanced technology is just this—all the ropes staying hidden, a machine that _simply_ works so well and so seamlessly it _feels_ alive. Stone shudders a little with it, not unpleasantly.

He watches his Doctor watch the drone. The orange-red pupil of its camera rhythmically expands and contracts, mapping its creator’s face, shifting it in and out of focus.

All his machines have a camera, so all must have this, this first memory. Kept folded away in their recesses, their memory banks, the very silicon at their core. The image of a tired, radiant face gazing through them, full of wonder. Chestnut eyes shining warm with that rare tenderness, that visceral joy.

It’s in those moments, watching the Doctor watch them, that any residue of antagonism fades, and Stone feels it too.

 _You perfect thing,_ that gaze says. _You are going to do so well, be so diligent and obedient. You are going to be so loved._

“Suited to thrive in all climates, hm?” Stone says softly. “The little explorer.”

The Doctor’s expression transforms, a long moment of staring off into space.

“It won’t get to do any _exploring,”_ he says, suddenly hard-voiced. “It’s not what they want it for. All they want is a VTOL gun.”

Stone watches him curl forward, curving tense over the warm white shell as if trying to merge with it. He faces away from Stone’s questioning eyes, leaning his temple against the black panel just above the drone’s camera.

A moment’s suspension—and a wet, wavering sigh.

_Oh. Oh, no._

“Doctor?” His hands hover, but do not touch. “What is it?”

Robotnik vigorously shakes his head, a slight _tup_ against the panel, curling in tighter. His shoulders twitch with a held-back sob. “No.”

“... no what?”

“ _No.”_

It’s fine. It’s _fine._ Endorphin flooding after prolonged exertion.

Like a runner’s high, but bigger and badder. Hits the poor man like a sack of bricks, doesn’t leave him any room for control. A completely normal reaction. The only surprising thing about it is not having seen it before, really. No reason for Stone’s chest to feel so tight it’s hard to breathe.

“Did I… did I say something?”

“ _NO!”_

 _Threat Detected…?_ flashes the wrist device. Stone’s breath catches at seeing the turrets peek up slowly, almost shyly.

“Shh, stand down, you,” he shushes, expecting nothing, just hoping that _maybe_ it will make the Doctor laugh. “Nothing so see here, just… we’re having a _moment._ Let us work it out, ‘kay?”

The prototype chirps, and obediently puts its guns away.

“.... what.” Stone looks at the Doctor, still hunched over and refusing to face him. “Doctor, it _knows_ me?”

“Not everything’s about _you,_ Stone!”

He ignores the obvious projecting, and the crack in his voice that leaves no space for doubt, and questions further, “But how does it know me?”

“ _I_ made it, obviously,” he snaps, explaining absolutely nothing. “It has the good sense to _know_ things.”

Naturally, it’s not like Stone doesn’t talk to the unfinished projects. He does it pretty often, as if they were houseplants in dire need of carbon dioxide. It’s a _thing._ Anyone working with Dr. Robotnik would pick up _that_ habit.

But he hasn’t touched the command glove or the computer, and even the most advanced machine will not heed a voice command unless programmed to do so.

“Why... why did I have to make you…?” Robotnik whispers into the smooth white shell, holding onto it for dear life. “You’re not safe in my brain anymore. Now—you’ll be all alone in the big harsh world...”

Stone air-pats the drone, muttering, _poor thing, poor thing._ There’s still a chance to keep this light, catch the low before it gets too low. “With only your arsenal of bullets and death-lasers and your little missile launchers to defend yourself...”

Robotnik sucks in a loud sniff. “All but 23 of them. That’s all that fit.”

Ah, primes. The loneliest numbers. Always good to have an odd instead of an even, the Doctor says. Makes for that unexpected extra that might just win you a war.

“You’re separate, now,” the Doctor murmurs, sounding utterly broken. “It’s done. There’s no undoing it.”

Stone feels a cold chill drain away any hope for humor. It’s not easy, seeing him like this—but it’s not like Dr. Robotnik is ever very controlled in any way, after all.

He’s unrestrained, unselfconscious. A big fat _screw you_ to social expectations. Not just the two loudest settings—anger and mania—but all his inner workings are right there, just below the surface, rowdy undercurrents in a deep dark ocean.

There are the waves to ride, relentless storms, sulfuric depths where strange creatures thrive. But also _(if you can swim strong, parcel out your oxygen. Withstand the crushing pressure.)_ the shimmer of sunset into oil-still horizons, the beautiful coral reefs. Stone witnesses, dead man’s float. He feels for the abyss of him the reverence of an old, sun-leathery seaman.

At the end of it all, what he dreads the most is his presence becoming _too much,_ the Doctor taking him up on his word. The mere idea of leaving him alone like this makes his throat tight.

“Now I have to send you off into battle,” Robotnik rasps through his teeth, biting into his sobs, “to be used and abused by that big stupid money-accruing conglomerate of troglodytes. And _die you must in any case,_ blown up to pieces— _for I must lose you and in bitterness and sorrow drag through life…_ ”

Of course, all in all, the body does not matter. The body is a means to an end, a manifestation of the consciousness within. A machine is the same, a physical expression of its programming.

The machines have self-destruction protocols against external tampering. The blueprints have backups of backups of backups protected behind hundred-digit passwords and retinal scans. Not to mention, of course, the Doctor has them all memorized. All that matters is the network of shared data, the perfected schematics that the automation systems can use to rebuild. All the rest, technically, is interchangeable.

Prototypes get blown up for testing, sometimes there are changes, unpredictable variables, malfunctions. If one is beyond repair, the Doctor will discard it without much sentiment, harvest reusable parts with the ruthless pragmatism of a doe consuming her placenta.

And yet, even if made with the same materials and with the same programming, each unit is unique in itself. Each of them has a wealth of potential, tragically unlikely to come to fruition.

Stone knows it will still _hurt,_ when these babies are called to war.

“Doctor,” he says low, giving up on lightheartedness. He hesitates to lay a comforting hand on his shoulder. “The great thing about machines is that they follow their programming, isn't it? They’re blameless. In whatever capacity they will be used, they'll be appreciated for what they can do."

Stone does not mention letting go, the necessity of it. He is not here to lecture a man that has not taken a proper break in over 100 hours. The Doctor will do it when he’s ready, Stone knows. He’ll ride the wave out with him.

He just… if only he could make it _better,_ somehow. If he could _be_ better at making it better. Share some of the burden, spare him the brunt of these extremes.

With a sharp gasp, the Doctor flinches away from his hand. _Threat Detected…?,_ flashes the computer. Stone makes a conscious effort to take neither personally.

“Sorry,” he mutters.

Robotnik stirs, delicately pushing the turrets closed with his hands, like the wings of a baby bird. His face pinches in a deep frown. “Hmm. We might have an issue, here.”

He dries his eyes with a distracted gesture, and paws towards Stone hitting him in his arm and chest.

“It’s just a little overprotective,” Stone argues with a faint half-smile, sliding the wrist device under his searching hand. He watches him pull up the drone’s programming on it to make the adjustments. “Doctor, you’re supposed to be _resting.”_

“This is a matter of _security,_ Stone.” And between his teeth, too low to catch, _Wonder whom it takes after, huh._ “I’d rather not risk it.”

“Okay, you’re right.”

“Why, who would have thought! Quiet, now.”

Stone lets him be. It’s the kind of quick tweak the Doctor could get done while in a coma, anyway.

Despite asking for silence, Robotnik doesn’t let much of it pass by. “Isn’t that better?” he asks, his voice still hoarse and cracking. “You’ve enjoyed a quiet week for a change, I bet.”

Again that touching openness, despite the more than abundant snide. Stone clears his throat, always a bit taken aback.

The Doctor always bounces back quickly. The combination of emotional release, exhaustion, and general loopiness never lasts very long.

There are many advantages that could be taken, here in this gap of lowered defenses. With this bare hunger for affection, with the moment as vulnerable as it is. With the limbs too heavy to move. A goldmine of weak spots, ready for the plunder.

 _Ah, it is human after all,_ their superiors sneer, in gesture and sometimes out loud, every time the Doctor falters. The smallest calculation error, a stutter, a social faux-pas. With the air of having been waiting for it the whole time. Every time, Stone has to hold back and watch the Doctor’s spine stiffen with tension, has to see his crestfallen expression show bare for all to feast on.

If any of this were known, Stone would be ordered _use it._ Strap his Doctor down for interrogation, his secrets pried from him one withheld touch at a time. One could do anything he wants, here.

It’s hateful. The awareness of it almost as much as the idea itself. Makes him want to tear himself open, wrench his training out of his marrow. _How noble of you,_ he sneers at himself, when he thinks he’d disobey those orders, consequences be damned. _Pat yourself on the back a bit harder._

He could ruin it. All he’s worked for, this whole teaspoon of trust stacked full grain by grain. He could pour it all out with his own hands—and he’d never have to fear seeing it taken away. He’d prove to himself what he’s always known, that he’s never been worthy of it, not something so precious and fragile, not so much of it.

“Stone…?”

He shakes himself off. He’s left the man hanging, looking up from his code with expectant eyes. It shows in the hesitation in his voice, that note of insecurity. It guts him. He can’t force himself to match that near-violent openness—not without spilling all of himself out again.

“I thought you wanted me to be quiet,” he says with a tight smile, the best he can manage.

Robotnik clears his throat, caught, his eyes avoiding. “Well, it wasn’t an order.”

Stone has never looked at these moments as proof of humanity. He never needs proof, not from the Doctor. Rather, they’re the closest he comes to seeing the world through his eyes. The perfect cogs, slowed down enough to see, take in every bump and scratch.

_(I see you, I see you, I see you.)_

“No, Doctor. I did not enjoy it,” he offers, smiling a little easier. “You know I never do.”

Robotnik nods, biting down a little smirk.

“Right.” He closes the drone’s settings and lets out a long sigh, leaning his forehead back against the cooling metal. He surrenders the device without a fight when Stone gestures for it. “That should do it.”

“All done? I’m always down for more _Euripides_.”

Robotnik considers him, lips pursed and jaw jutting slightly forward in thought. The smudged tear-tracks are paths in the dusting of lead on his face.

“You and the Greeks, Stone,” he huffs. “Maybe later. Now I’ve lost momentum.”

Stone gives. He pulls a sealed bottle of water from his bag, takes a sip out of habit, wets a facecloth. The Doctor should be hydrated enough to drink without throwing up now, so he passes the bottle without a word.

When it’s empty, he offers his hand, unarmed but for the damp cloth. “Is it alright, now?”

Instead of a simple nod, the Doctor moves into his touch, lets him cup his cheek and wipe his face, week-grown stubble scratching him slightly. He folds the cloth on a clean side, gently tips the Doctor’s chin up, and goes over a second time, then down the burning temples, the twitchy ears, wiping off sweat and grime and more lead.

“Here you go,” Stone says, and uses the last clean side of the cloth to wipe down the drone’s sooty front and camera, too. “And here _you_ go as well.”

The Doctor cracks a smile, then a tiny startled laugh. Then, the sound of plastic creaking. Stone watches the Doctor’s throat work, his eyes fall shut. The empty bottle crumpled in his hands. He has to look away.

“Ah— _dammit,”_ Robotnik hisses. A slightly panicked echo of him, he turns away as well. “S-sorry.”

Stone whips back around, takes him by the shoulder without thinking. The Doctor lets him. “No, why are you sorry?”

Some droplets spill from the crumbled bottle as he flings it off, gesturing. “I thought I was done. I should be _done.”_ He sounds all but exasperated with himself, as if he had a permission slip for a single crying spell and no more. “It’s been a while since this happened—it’s _stupid.”_

“It’s not stupid.” Stone cradles this new confession close to his chest, right there where it hurts. “It’s not. How could anything you do be stupid?”

Something audibly breaks. It’s a high, held-back noise, like a laugh gone sour. “Y-you’d be surprised.”

Asking for permission with his hesitation only, Stone slowly reaches around and pulls him in. Robotnik lets him, reaching for him with the same arm as before, fingers sinking into Stone’s back. Lets him offer his chest to hide into, lets him hush the tight sobs that come short and breathless. Lets him murmur his quiet reassurances that _it’s fine, it’s allowed, I promise. As long as you need._

_(I won’t look. But I see you.)_

The music plays, low and soothing, only sound in the silent lab save for the muffled peal of rain and the ever-present sleep mode buzz. And, of course, the quiet sound of them breathing as one.

He can feel the Doctor slowly coming down again. His vitals are stabilizing, and he has shifted into a calm daze; his head a pleasant weight on Stone’s shoulder, holding the drone in his lap, fully lost in contemplation. Stone does not bother him, but at times he feels him lean slightly into his hand, wherever it keeps brushing its barely-there circles.

Then, in a barely-perceptible shift, he dozes off.

The flood and release of emotions leaves Stone a bit lightheaded. The worst of it should be over, now. Maybe he can allow himself a little indulgence, cut them both a little slack. He yawns from the belly into the back of his hand, and leans into the full feeling of _this,_ whatever it is. His diaphragm unclenches, like a snake uncoiling.

For the 30 or so minutes it takes the IV to finish, he simply sits, tries to relax, and lets his mind drift.

It’s only as he’s patching him up and rolling up the line that he dares ask, “Was that part of the process, too?”

The Doctor waits for him to scoot close again. He looks a bit more alive now, a short nap doing wonders for an expert polyphasic sleeper.

“It has been.”

Stone hums in sympathy. “Is that why you used to send me away?” He feels a small, weary nod. “Do you know what triggers it?”

“Compounded exhaustion and being saturated with frustration, I believe. But this time just blindsided me. I’m not sure what that was.”

“Maybe you just needed to let off some steam. And too tired to shout.”

The Doctor snorts. “However it happens, it’s always in your face.”

“I don’t mind.” He hesitates, asking carefully, “Did you mind…? Having me here?”

_(Maybe, if the roots go deep enough, you will see me. And you’ll want to keep me, too.)_

“It’s... strange. Bit humiliating.” All honesty, no hostility. Still stings. “Kinda gives the whole thing a wimpy vibe.”

“You know there’s nothing to be ashamed of.”

“No.” His Doctor looks up to him, eyes full of that old pain, and whispers, “… I wish you weren’t separate, either.”

* * *

The more painful the severing, the further back we reach for the roots.

Legend has it, he has voyager's blood in his veins. When the known world was the shallow basin of the Mediterranean, his ancestors could sound its depths with this length of rope, this bit of lead. They could follow the winds and stars over it, from Tyre to Carthage to Tingis.

_(If colleagues had an ounce of brain and knew where to cut, they'd tell him he would have done great in the navy.)_

Legend has it, there was a foreign king that refused to travel, unless a Phoenician was manning the ship.

 _(Let's do an experiment, just you and me,_ the ship’s crow tells him. _Open my cage, set your course to my trail. I'll be your compass, your sextant. You have to keep it together, and trust me to know my way. Man the oar, I’ll find land.)_

_Everything snug and shipshape in its place. What an impeccable mate. A real look-out man at the prow._ You asked at the start, _Shall I call you Phlebas?_

I gave you my bulletproof smile, perhaps the only one I haven’t meant. I had been wounded before, misjudging. Not often. But in this world, one time is once too many.

 _You already have my name,_ I said. _Please use it._ And you backed off. That's when I knew. The Damascus steel of you would cut skin-deep and not a hair further.

You've always been so exact.

_(For all your sharp edges, I knew we'd be safe together.)_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter title from _I’m a Mother_ by The Pretenders.
> 
> The Doctor's half-delirious quote is from Euripides' [_Medea_](http://classics.mit.edu/Euripides/medea.html) [For I must lose you both and in bitterness and sorrow drag through life. And ye shall never with fond eyes see your mother more for o'er your life there comes a change.] and [Die they must in any case, and since 'tis so, why I, the mother who bore them, will give the fatal blow.]
> 
> The references in the final part are from Eliot's [_The Waste Land_](https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/47311/the-waste-land) (IV. Death by Water), and Xenophon's [_The Economist,_](https://www.gutenberg.org/files/1173/1173-h/1173-h.htm) Chapter VIII.


	8. Enough of the hell

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> One (1) boundary.

Knowledge is knowing he’s on track with his training enough to still deadlift twice his body weight. Wisdom is knowing that, in this case, he _should not._

Lifting a barbell and carrying someone that can’t hold on, while both dealing with dead weights, are vastly different endeavors. He needs his hands free for fingerprint scans and door handles and, while a fireman carry would be practical, it would not only jostle the Doctor too much, but also supremely kill the vibe.

 _One day,_ Stone thinks with a sigh, carefully tucking the blanket around the Doctor on the hovering stretcher, testing the contraption’s balance. Solid, no risk of tipping over. Robotnik drifted off again as soon as Stone helped him on it.

This time, once again, Stone has to be wise. No matter how intense those chivalrous fantasies unearthed by his Doctor’s words.

_(I wish you weren’t separate, either.)_

Even if he aches all over with it. No matter how unbearably brave and tender this surrender is.

It’s frightening, almost, to know someone like this, with the intimacy of an apostle. The extremes of him all muddled together, the suffering made sweet in that transmuting radiance, gold spun from lifeblood and lead dust. It hurts not to oblate something more than his helping hand, than his promises of fealty.

He starts guiding the stretcher towards the door, smiling tightly at the drone that right away moves to follow, its hum pitching up, inquisitive.

“Come with,” Stone says to the machine, voice low as not to disturb. “We’re getting the good doctor into bed soon. Really did a number on the man, didn’t you? No—this way.”

The drone chirps, hovering near enough to put a hand on the smooth shell, feel the pleasant warmth and texture of it.

“Come,” he murmurs, and walks like that the whole way, hands each guiding one weightless thing.

Thunder is much louder in the elevator, out of the soundproof cocoon of the lab. He secures his grip on the stretcher’s handle hearing the crash of the storm outside, a light shudder coursing through him. He feels the brush of fingers on his white knuckles.

“… a close one.”

Stone looks down in surprise, taking in the mumble, the closed eyes.

“What?” he asks, despite it likely being sleep-talk.

“Thunder strike.” Robotnik swallows, face twitching slightly. His hand lifts, gestures to his ear with an eerie, languid motion. “’s close, if you can hear the crack. You can smell it, too—the heat splits them apart, oxygen and nitrogen. Oxygen rebounds… with itself, in a threesome. And you get ozone.”

Stone scratches the back of his neck, rubbing the static out of his hair. That smell like electrical sparks, that sometimes clings to the Doctor’s hair and hands, settles deep in his clothes. “Huh. That’s pretty neat.”

“It gets trust issues, perhaps.”

“Who does?”

“Oxygen. Only wants itself, after being ripped apart,” Robotnik says, with the impatience of a dream-character explaining something you should already know. “But before that… you’ll see the lightning, anyway. Count the seconds between and divide by five, you get the approximate distance between you and a _Lichtenberg-Figuren_. Statute miles, not nautical, _natürlich_.” Robotnik’s eyebrows knit in a frown above his closed eyes. “If you’re out at sea... divide by 5.65, instead.”

“I’ll keep it in mind next time we’re on a boat, if there’s a storm.”

“There’s always danger, Stone. You just have to know how far away it is. Approximation is enough—once you know, it’s silly to be scared.”

 _Oh._ Stone bites back a disarmed snort. He returns the light touch, gently stroking the back of the Doctor’s fingers.

“I’m not,” he reassures. “I’m really not. I like storms. The smell, especially.”

Robotnik hums then, like that made everything make sense. The hand falls away, landing soft across his belly, and he’s out again. If he was ever really in.

The Agent’s chest aches with savage, desperate protectiveness.

* * *

Living quarters are spartan, on the compound. For the most part, the Doctor hasn’t bothered too much with remodeling and personalizing, more keen to channel that energy into constant lab upgrades.

The shower room, however, is the exception. Elevated from bleak to not only practical, but quite nice, it has been converted into a small, modern _ofuro_. Tiled to the ceiling, it has a floor drain, an uncomfortably deep cypress tub for the pensive soaks one never has the time for, and a low-set shower with a long hose and a small stool.

Stone saw to this space, too. Made it alive and alert, lights on and towels heated, like autumnal Pemberley primed for the expected return. Fragrance-free castile soap, a new washcloth ready on the caddy. A change of clothes on the shelf above the laundry chute, in a corner kept dry with a glass panel. All that’s missing are some candles, but _come on._

Everything is within reach, plenty of sturdy surfaces to brace on, non-slip flooring. It's pretty safe to use, even for someone temporarily struggling to keep upright.

Stone pulls the heavy work boots off and helps Robotnik off the stretcher, down onto unsteady feet. He offers his arm for support, knowing it will be ignored. The Doctor drags himself forward, stumbling, grasping at the wall instead.

Stark reminders. The Doctor used to deal with his process alone. He used to deal with everything alone. It’s fine, no need to run after him like an infirm. He can manage. He had to, always, with everything.

“Alright like this?” Stone asks, and tries to fight the near-unbearable thought out of his head. Robotnik can only manage a tiny nod, already out of breath, and gesture for him to help him down onto the stool.

Stone holds him up by the arms, feels anew that bone-deep tremble, and the thought slips his control, lodges itself there, cruel as a memory.

His Doctor, sobbing spent on the cold lab floor, clutching his completed creation. Physically and emotionally wiped. Bruised, feverish, sometimes injured—having to force himself up, talk to people, get things finalized. Take care of himself only as an afterthought. Conference calls and reports and logistics and all that _shouting—_ no wonder he’d crash and burn every other month. How did he do it, before finally allowing himself to be helped through the brunt of it? How did he _survive?_

 _Okay case scenario._ He’s just getting older. Every year must have been a little harder. That collapse during the aircraft project caught him by surprise—he had ended up telling Stone, in a moment not unlike the one shared in the lab—the worst kind of unexpected variable. He runs himself as efficiently as he can, but not even an extraordinary man like him can fight the passing of time.

 _Bad case scenario._ The Doctor used to exercise _some_ restraint, back then, not letting himself get as deep into the work as he does now. With Stone enabling all his destructive tendencies, even that modicum of self-preservation has gone down the drain. It’s very hard, like this, telling himself this is what a good assistant does. Is he helping, or is he fostering codependency, like some sick, duplicitous parasite? Is he giving his Doctor the support he needs, or taking advantage of a man that doesn’t know how boundaries work?

Stone’s chest goes cold at the idea, tight. His hand clutching closer as a reflex, eliciting a hiss. Hushed, fretful apologies.

“It’s nothing, Stone. Sore arms... is all,” Robotnik wheezes, without letting go. “Don’t… don’t sweat it.”

Stone nods. His heart feels like a bone set wrong.

 _Worst case scenario._ The world they live is incompatible with something so beautiful, so dangerous and fragile. It will always want to destroy it. They are killing him, and this is history's longest execution.

 _Sentiment,_ sneers the echo of his Doctor’s voice, his everyday self. _Think rationally, Agent Stone. Think like a scientist._

How did these habits come to be? Why is Dr. Robotnik even _allowed_ to work this way, who reaps the benefit?

A hot spike of fury sears through him—the state, their uncaring handlers. Do labor laws just not apply to top secret super genius government assets, or what? Personal projects aside, they’ve let him destroy himself for _decades_ and taken full advantage, banking on his superhuman resilience, his ease of work, his need for recognition.

Year after year they make Stone stand guard as they get deeper under the Doctor's skin, pickax into him like a gold streak, bolder and hungrier with their demands. Stone is to keep quiet, and compile every spasm of agony in a neat little report, sign his name under it in impeccable blue ink. _Dismantling of a Genius._ He's part of this awful machine and maybe—maybe if he weren't there (with the secrets he’s kept, his loyalties tri-shifted. The co-written reports mean nothing, and neither does his honesty), the Doctor would have already broken free.

 _Let’s do it, let’s go, let’s get away from here,_ he wants to scream. He wants to hoist Robotnik up on his shoulder and run. Let him build a satellite, a fucking Arc reactor, let him send rockets to the moons of Jupiter—let him advance the human race, as he was always meant to! He is so much happier and easy to manage when working on his personal research. But no matter how brilliant and innovative, that never seems to get any funding.

_(All they want is a VTOL gun.)_

Stone lets himself imagine it, just for a moment. _(Let's do an experiment. Just you and me.)_ Going private in all senses of the word. An off-the-grid cabin in an undisclosed location, all the charms of life deep in the woods with none of the disadvantages.

The Doctor could build it. He could dream it up and make it real, as everything else that sparks to life in that beautiful brain, out of those exact hands. Stone would help. And it would be perfect. Away from this tangle of military voices and empty social rituals and gutting contracts. Free and belonging at once, extremes combined with no pain, no friction. A life with time for a good, pensive soak.

He considers himself a pragmatic person. As any pragmatic person would, he scrubs the fantasy from his mind. What he can do is get the man into this shower and leave him be, protect his dignity at least here, at least now. _Focus on that,_ he orders himself. _Focus on what you can do._

He lets go when Robotnik does, and takes a slow step back. “About thirty minutes?”

“I can be done in ten.”

“You don’t have to rush,” Stone reminds. “You have time.”

“… twelve and a quarter.”

Stone haggles until he gets to twenty. It’s not too hard. He never got around to teaching him. “Hot water this time, _please._ ” He makes sure the wrist device is connected to the intercom as it should. “Okay. I’ll come knocking in twenty to get you to bed. Any trouble at all—say the word and I’ll rush right back. Should I leave the Badnik with you?”

Robotnik huffs a laugh. “No, take it with you. I don’t want to traumatize it.”

The words “As if,” slip out of Stone’s mouth, and he can see the _question._

Right there, behind clenched teeth, taking the space between one sharp inhale and its longer, labored exhale. Nestled in the little gap between a quip and the next.

It’s torture. He doesn’t want to leave him, and Robotnik doesn’t want to be left. And yet, they must.

Offering help is much easier than receiving it, much safer than asking for it. As a principle, Stone prefers to offer and be rejected than to force the man to ask. But not with this. Even in this blurry landscape, this border line is stark, marked clear into the soil.

And the Doctor doesn't ask. He never asks.

“Flatterer,” he says only, that small grin in the crinkles of his eyes. Stone nods and takes another step back. Gradual, less painful.

If they weren't two different people, if they weren't _separate,_ there would be nothing inappropriate about it. It would be an everyday thing, just a man washing his own body, no implications, nothing more to it. You don't have to beg your own self to help you, to care for you, you already know what you need. Stone already knows, too. Sometimes, he knows even before Robotnik does.

But the body is not his, and neither is the man. Therefore, he must leave now.

After all, just because he is the only person the Doctor tolerates, just because he trusts him with many aspects of his privacy, it doesn’t necessarily mean that he wants anything else from him. He will always be kept at arm’s length. And it’s a _good thing._ A relief. He should be grateful for it.

He breathes out slowly, trying to ground himself, back in the moment. He focuses on what he can do, casting a last look, makes sure everything is _just so._ It’s only twenty minutes. Barely enough time to get everything on his to-do list done. He turns on his heels, shuts the door with a nod and a quiet click. He does what is needed.

His loyalties have long settled. For people like them, this is as safe as it gets.

_(We have to make do.)_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter title from The Rasmus' _Shot_
> 
> Thank you to Astra for the lightning maths help ; 0 ;/


	9. And compromises turn to gold

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Busted.

He ought to put arnica gel on the shopping list for next time, Stone muses.

He sits bedside, and rubs moisturizer into the Doctor’s hands. The powdery scent of shea butter soothes the senses as he rubs small, light circles over tense metacarpals, extensor tendons pulled taut as violin strings. Poor things are dry, stiff and swollen with overwork, certainly no less sore than the rest of him.

He folds the unsaid into a careful brush of fingertips against the shocking bareness of his palm—little scars and acid stains, but also flexion creases, fingerprints like anyone else—a little ticklish, going by the small twitch of the Doctor’s mustache, even as he sleeps.

* * *

A lot can get done in twenty minutes. More than what people tend to think.

While the Doctor was showering, Stone had speed-run his to-do list.

Anxious ear to the intercom and drone in tow, hovering hurried after him, he headed back down to the lab. He got any scattered piece of paper out of the way, gave the drone a wash and a quick coat of wax, and started up the automatic deep-clean system. He then stepped into his office to check emails and update calendars and, with most of the logistics under control at the twenty minute mark, he ran back up to the bathroom.

_Empty._

His handle on panic lasted him the few steps to the bedroom threshold, where with a hand pressed to his chest in relief he took in the sprawled lump on the bed.

 _Stubborn,_ he mouthed to the drone, carefully sliding a towel under Robotnik’s sopping wet hair. “Just _had_ to finish early, didn’t he?”

Aside from a tank top and underwear, he did not bother with the clothes Stone set out for him. The rest—a soft cotton tracksuit and seamless socks—was scattered on the stretcher by the door. Stone shifted the sheet under him like a sieve to fit the disarray of limbs within the confines of the bed, and pulled up the weighted blanket folded by the footboard. Pickpocket fingers pried the still-on speaker from between the Doctor’s chest and arm. He elevated his feet on a firm pillow to aid fluid circulation. Man didn’t even stir.

After a short thinking pause, Stone gestured for the drone’s attention, stilling its bumblebee-like slow sway in mid-air.

“Hey, listen. Stand guard, okay?” He backed away slowly, holding the machine’s attention with a pointed finger and waiting for the affirmative chirp. “Good bot. You’re in charge. No one enters here but me, no one bothers him. Got it?”

Knowing Robotnik was well-guarded and resting, the Agent got back to work. He put on some food in the office kitchen, setting the countertop oven’s timer for start and finish, pouring hot water into a thermos he had prepared in the fridge. As it wasn’t yet, at least in their timezone, Normal People Office Hours, he left a few voicemails.

Only then, with the upper floor on triple-checked full lockdown and all inboxes set to Out-of-Office, Stone finally breathed out and allowed himself a coffee break.

He stretched, letting his back pop, tailbone sore from sitting up on the lab floor for so long. He considered if he could squeeze in a shower and change of clothes, sorely needed after all the running between floors.

He could. On a whim weakly corroborated by the notion that _the boiler was already running_ , he decided against the showers downstairs.

The Doctor’s bathroom, still a little steamy, smelled dreamily of castile and floral shampoo. He spotted the wet footprints on the floor, and his mind wandered briefly to the Doctor’s wet hair, the frayed ends of his unstyled mustache, the bruise-like shadows under his closed eyes. Stone sighed, gave his back to the tub’s sweet siren song, and kept it strictly under 3 minutes.

He came back, thermos in hand, to the drone hovering about a foot above Robotnik’s bed, emitting white noise at low volume. Its red eye was focusing and unfocusing again, fixed despite the low-battery flicker.

“Thank you, good job,” Stone whispered, putting a charging pad down on the bed and patting it invitingly. “Get down here. Take a nice nap now, just like your—just like the Doctor. And you’ll be the first thing he sees when he wakes up.”

Good thing about a machine not much bigger than a family-size crockpot is that it fits about anywhere. Stone was still thinking about the logistics of the system for bigger projects, like a few of the things still brewing in Robotnik’s drafts. The pragmatic in him said camping mat set down in the lab—but he was sure there would be a more elegant solution available.

The drone hummed, winding down into sleep-mode, and Stone allowed himself another yawn. He could have gone for some sleep-mode too.

“Pity he can’t make me a charging pad too, hm?” he murmured to the unguarded resting face, the ever-knitted brow.

Alive, check. Clean, check. Hydrated and rested, working on it.

Used to sleeping in short bursts, the Doctor wasn’t likely to stay under much longer. So, Stone settled to restore those hardworking hands to life, thinking of what would come next.

Something light, hot, and soothing to drink. Re-acclimatizing his body to food. Perhaps a word about some things said on that lab floor.

The hard and risky part should be behind them now, leaving the pleasant prospect of a taking-it-easy routine for a few days—even the whole week if Stone could get away with it. Of long talks and movie nights. Of his Doctor allowing himself to be talked into taking a minute off, to be looked after.

There is nothing _easy_ about this process. Nothing cold or clinical. No hope for detachment. _There’s really something here,_ he thought, not for the first time.

Despite nearing exhaustion himself, Stone allowed himself a moment to savor that bittersweet, contented warmth.

* * *

Dr. Robotnik comes to with a start and a wild, wide-eyed look.

He tends to wake like he’s late for something, forgetting something. He can’t _possibly_ have time to be idle, can he? No matter how much they try to ingrain the system, the way he did things before is ingrained much deeper.

“Shh, easy,” Stone soothes, gently squeezing back the hand that’s crushing his. “You don’t need to be anywhere. No urgent matters whatsoever. Everything’s taken care of.”

The Doctor blinks the panic out of his hazy eyes and squints, catching himself up to the present. He leans his head back with a huff, and his grip relaxes, leaving white indents behind.

“Want me to continue?” Stone asks after a beat, waiting for an affirmative grunt before resuming his rubbing.

“It really _is_ morning.”

“Sure is.”

“Late?”

Stone releases the hand he was massaging, gently setting it down on the snug drape of the weighted blanket. He rounds the bed to reach the other hand instead of pulling it across, mindful of sore arms.

“No, not at all. You slept not even thirty minutes.”

He makes sure to massage from the fingertips back to the center to ease the fluid buildup back into circulation, thumbing the palm open. Soldier’s hands, polymath’s hands. Here, tense fingers against tense fingers, interwoven. The Doctor heaves a sigh, tension visibly draining away.

“You’ve given it a bath…?”

Stone looks down, following Robotnik’s gaze as it moves from the window to the prototype’s glossy exterior.

“Yup, all shiny and clean once again. It seemed a little droopy, so I put it to charge.”

Robotnik nods. He does not check if the charging pad is the correct model for the drone’s batteries. Stone basks in the warmth of it, one more grain on his teaspoon of trust.

“It’s the tests, wiped it right out. Batteries are still in need of some upgrades.” He clears the hoarseness from his throat. “Weapon reload time, too. Actually… I was thinking—if I could modify this model to run on one wheel—nest it within the Mayhem project.”

Stone can’t help a grin. Barely awake, already thinking of ten improvements to do. His Doctor. “Big bad tank with the harpoon gun?”

“The very one. Can you see it, Stone?”

That project, too, is relatively recent. Stone is fond of the memory, as the idea for it came while they were together, during another week like this one, watching a whaling documentary. The first draft of Mayhem’s schematics took shape on an ungodly jigsaw puzzle of steak fries napkins.

“This is giving me like… unicycle?”

Robotnik laughs, coughing a little. “That could work. Or however many wheels are left. Something flexible, agile. Ready for anything.”

Stone still has them, all neat in a manila folder, oil stains and all. The idea had slammed into the Doctor’s head like a curve ball, scoring an excellent point in favor of their system. He’d broken Stone’s heart a little, too, mentioning he hadn’t got a burst of inspiration like that in _years._ He’d just been so _tired_ all the time, so drained.

“Chasing terrorists at high speeds.”

“Slashing their tires!”

Stone smiles. “Can’t wait to see it all fine-tuned.”

Reading the tug to their still-joined hands, Stone pulls to help him sit up and fits a pillow behind him. He receives a grateful squint for his efforts even if, as lucidity returns, the Doctor is growing more shy with touch already.

“I’ll get to it.” He winces with the movement. “Ah— _ow._ In a bit.”

“It doesn’t have to be today,” Stone reminds him, as kindly as he can. “Today’s for resting up.”

The Doctor pulls away to reach down to ghost over the chassis again, far enough to avoid getting moisturizer on the wax job. He runs over the breaking lines, the edge of its powered-down camera, the outlines of its turrets.

“Right,” he murmurs, giving a solemn yet childlike nod. He cracks his neck side to side, letting out a loud hiss.

Water from his hair slowly drips down his neck. Stone follows a droplet’s journey, jugular to collarbone to the black cotton of the tank top. Hands with nothing to do are dangerous things. He shoots to his feet to fold up the stretcher and the discarded clothes, pausing to retrieve an extra blanket to drape over the Doctor’s bare shoulders. The hem grows damp immediately.

Offering is always so much easier than asking. A coward’s path. “Your hair is still so wet.”

“The lactic acid is settling in,” Robotnik says, reading the offer as reprimand. “My arms are all but useless.”

“Got it.”

Stone shakes out the towel and drapes it, rubbing carefully not to pull on his hair. He unveils Robotnik’s face and chokes down a huff of laughter at the pout he finds, hiding just below the fluffed-out mustache. With permission, he gently coaxes the strands into an unwaxed version of the usual pristine handlebar.

“There, all better,” he says instead, and offers the thermos cup.

“Tea?”

“The tannins didn’t agree too much with your stomach last time, so I thought we’d try _shiromiso_ soup this time.”

Robotnik instantly brightens. “Ah! I could go for savory.”

He takes a careful sip and, encountering his preferred drinking temperature, a larger gulp. The spread of the hot liquid is almost visible in the pleased shudder of his limbs, like a vibration rippling through his whole body. Stone has the sudden thought that it’s a shame he’s not sitting close enough to feel it.

“Nothing like something warm to drink on a rainy day, hm?”

Instead of replying, the Doctor cradles the thermos closer, biting into his lip. He hunches into the warm blanket, glancing at the charging pad, the folded clothes, the pillow keeping his feet up.

“I...” he tries. And his voice catches. “… oh, _hell_.”

“Doctor?”

“Stone. It’s best if you... head home, now.”

As if underlying the request, thunder strikes almost deafening outside.

“Huh?”

“It’s… going to be like this all week,” he says low, sounding miserable. “I’ll say shit no one wants to hear. Make an absolute spectacle of myself. You couldn’t _possibly_ stomach it. Go. Leave. Take the week off. I have to be alone.”

 _Shit._ Stone did say he only had to say the word. Is this _The Word?_

“I’ll give you a moment if you want, but,” Stone says reluctantly, “did I do something to upset you?”

“ _No_ , no, dammit. It’s… the _opposite_.”

Stone gets it. He has had his fair share of sobbing into canned soup after particularly harrowing ordeals, undone by the simple comfort of warmth.

“I’m sure I can manage it, Doctor,” he says softly. “I’ll thread carefully, and not take it to heart if you’re not as polite as you usually are, okay?”

Robotnik lets out a desperate little guffaw, shaking the thermos in frustration. Thank you, non-spill design. “ _Stop_ being so damn—understanding and accommodating...”

“You really want me to go away?” Noise of annoyance. Hesitation. Head-shake. “Then what is it?”

"Every time we do this... it gets to a point where—what were whims become wants and feel like _needs_. It’s not _conducive_.”

“Whims?” Stone studies the vague, forceful gesture provided as response, interpreting. “You mean… basic necessities, like soup and a blanket?”

“No—don’t be _obtuse,_ now.”

And Stone does drop his gaze, a little ashamed as he was, in fact, being kind of obtuse on purpose.

“You know I don’t excel at… _moderation_ , in any aspect.” He halts, gestures. “It’s too much. It’s—spoiling a greedy thing. Making it even more of a shirker than it already is.”

 _Oh, man._ Stone leans back, admiring the view out the new window of insight just opened for him.

He knows, of course, that there’s more to this than making food and draping a blanket. How could he not know? He’d just been trying to tell himself the Doctor had to be unaware of it, had to be uncaring of this strange workplace intimacy as he is with so many social norms. That all Stone had to do was not make it weird, and it wouldn’t ever be weird.

"And what if it could have it?" he asks, surprising himself with the boldness of it. _There’s very little I would refuse you, really. So very little._ “What if I _liked_ spoiling that greedy thing rotten?”

He doesn't make any moves, sudden or otherwise. He does not shift at all. And yet the Doctor backs imperceptibly away, his eyes wide with uncertainty, maybe fear.

“ _Like_ it?” he echoes. “Now you’re just being _absurd_. Come on, what is it to you?”

Stone shouldn’t have been so careless, should have talked more about boundaries. Not just admit that it _is_ , there and weird, but having to try and _define_ it, too. It feels like the Doctor is trying to bring up to the surface some blind and pale creature of the abyss, doomed to either die of barotrauma or shrivel up at the terrible kiss of sunlight.

"I enjoy being part of your process, being helpful to you, and being confided in," Stone says. The lie, _It's no deeper than that_ stays in his mouth, tasting a little sour. “But I think you really pushed your limits this time, Doctor. You should rest more.”

For a long, unsettling moment, Robotnik does nothing but stare him down. Even bedridden with damp, unstyled hair, his intense stare can make Stone squirm a little. It’s not really fear—some primal awe, from the gut. It must have been what prehistoric humans felt, staring into a fire for the first time.

“Well, you don’t seem as chipper as usual yourself either, Agent Stone.”

Stone gapes slightly, thrown for a loop. “Uh?”

The stare continues. Stone holds it, not lowering his eyes, not with challenge but with the desire to meet him where he’s at… wherever that might be. To understand why suddenly he would—

“Yes. You seem downright _exhausted.”_

His expressive face morphs into a dimpled, mischievous grin, mustache framing his pretty laugh lines. Stone is glad he’s already sitting.

It takes him all he has not to stammer. “I’ve just been— _worried,_ for the past week,” he cracks. “A bit.”

“Worry, _hah,”_ Robotnik laughs. “What a waste of your time! Not mine though, for once. But it’s too late now, what is done is done! Now you’re all tuckered out. Positively _tipping over_ with weariness, you are. I guess it can’t be helped, you’ll need to take a little rest, too.”

Stone blinks, whiplashed yet again. “What, _now?_ Doctor, no, there’s still a lot to do. I can rest tonight.”

“Oh, is that how it is? Only I have limits I mustn’t push past, or else surrender to your ignoble onslaught of kindness?” He crosses his arms, wincing. “It’s all _do as I say, not as I do_ with you, huh, Agent?”

Eyebrows pinched, Stone splays his hands in gestural incomprehension.

“Because you’re irrationally refusing to take your own advice, and I strive to rectify irrationality.”

“But Doctor… I really prefer not to leave you alone like this. It will be a few hours before you can safely be up and about.”

A loud exhale, from the bellows of the Doctor’s lungs out through his lower teeth. “Well, then. There’s a solution to that, so obvious that any idiot could see it.” He lifts both eyebrows, giving him his _most_ condescending head-tilt to date. “And you’re a fairly decent problem-solver, aren’t you, Stone?”

It’s Stone’s turn to stare. And he stares.

This is… new.

He senses his way around it, like finding the lab’s fuse-box during a blackout, palming the wall in the dark. Use the back of your hand, so you won’t grab a hanging cable and electrocute yourself.

_(Thread carefully. You could die here.)_

He hesitates, getting up from the chair with the grace of a newborn foal, almost certain he has misunderstood.

With a loud, exasperated groan—and a muttered complaint that he has to do _everything_ himself, even when he’s exhausted—Robotnik makes his suggestion crystal clear, lifting the drone and scooting aside to make some space.

At a loss for words, Stone can only squeak, “I’m in my _day clothes...”_

Under his incredulous gaze, Robotnik brings the drone out of sleep mode for the sole purpose to have it join him as he dramatically rolls his eyes to the ceiling and back.

“Fine, _fine._ You don’t have to give me _that,_ good grief.”

Stone climbs on. In stunned stupor, he adds his weight. The bed dips under him, not a creak from its hinges breaking the tense silence. A double _futon_ on a lowered metal frame, edge jutting out at the precise height to catch your shin at the nerve. All the hostile architecture of it. He waits a beat, as if the Doctor might lunge, snake-like, and make a one-bite meal out of him. Quicker than cup noodles.

Obviously, he doesn’t. Stone lets his shoes drop to the floor and awkwardly settles down on top of the covers, supremely out of his depth. Does Robotnik really expects him to be able to rest here, when he’s cracking open under the weight of it, the unsaid, the implied?

He tries imagining, at the start of it all, being able to see it end up like this. Where is the line, he keeps thinking, where did the boundary go? Where are the sacrificial gears of this, where is it supposed to fall apart?

“... thank you?” he attempts.

Robotnik nods, and raps a satisfied little jingle into the shell of the drone. He finishes his soup with a pleased hum. Stone hesitantly stops holding his breath, settling at a safe distance.

_(That light-year of an inch)_

He has barely managed to calm down, rationalizing and thinking back of all the times this happened before, especially on mission—rows of anonymity, shields of pragmatism—where their routines are hard to maintain and all that remains of the comfort of the familiar is the other’s voice, the brush of his hand, his shape in the dark.

Yes, maybe he can handle this. Bed-sharing doesn’t have to mean anything, either.

The moment so still and quiet that a very low melodic tone makes them jump as if it were a blaring alarm.

 _Incoming call,_ the sound system says through Stone’s speaker. _Caller identified: Comm. Walters._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Took a break from this to write _Krummholz_ , but now WE'RE BACK.  
> Chapter title from _Spoiled & Rotten_ by Darling Violetta


	10. Better often left alone

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> No breaks allowed.

_No. Oh no._

_Not Walters. Not NOW._

“What the— _how_ ,” Stone gasps, gracelessly leaping off the bed and nearly tripping in the platform, re-checking the already triple-checked lockdown settings on the wrist device. “I’m _certain_ I set everything to DND, and I mean _everything_...”

Commander Walters, currently and inexorably being patched through by the system, is _many_ things—but he’s no hacker.

No, the only explanation is that Stone, miserable excuse for an Agent and a man, must have somehow _overlooked_ this _one_ crucial step—

“You did,” Robotnik says, strangely calm, making the agent’s impending spiral into panic and dismay grind to a halt. “He has an override code.”

“An overri—he _does_?”

Robotnik looks away, awkwardly bunching up the blanket.

“Right. Okay.” Stone draws in a breath, his desperate grasp for control finding an anchor in those fidgety hands. “You wanna take this?”

“I’d rather inject chlorhydric acid _directly_ into my optic nerve, thank you. Also,” the Doctor says, digging into sleep-heavy eyelids with the knuckle of his thumb, “I’m not exactly _presentable_.”

“Alright. Okay. I’ll handle it.”

He makes to round the bed and step outside, but a long bare leg blocks his path before he has even started to move.

“No. Do it here.”

The Doctor’s foot nudges him to the edge of the bed. One of the nails is bruised, which somehow he hadn’t noticed before. Too busy handling his frazzlement to listen to either reason or instinct, Stone sits back down without protest.

He angles himself to have only the wall and his face in the frame, breathes out. He hits _Accept_ with what he hopes is his most neutral façade, and a rising sense of impending doom.

Commander Walters, their primary contact by virtue of being the only oddball with the patience to deal with Dr. Robotnik, is genial as ever despite the early hour.

He seems to be still at home—thanks to the low angle he’s holding his phone at, Stone can see the infamous mauve ceilings the Commander small-talked to him about once—prim and shaved, morning coffee in his white Air Force mug. He expresses some surprise at getting through to Stone, but takes in stride. He’s used to Robotnik taking protocol as loose guidelines, after all.

After the necessary pleasantries comes a prompt request for updates. Stone’s polite invitation to check his inbox is unsurprisingly brushed aside. Even as a friendly hologram above his wrist, he still makes Stone’s hackles raise. As they say, a chatty superior officer is no one's friend.

The Agent handles it as smooth as he can. He keeps the hostility from his voice, avoiding any glance at Robotnik that would give away that he’s in the room.

He’s Agent Stone—emphasis on _Agent_ —nothing but a good assistant, handling a call his charge is simply too busy to take. From his office, like a normal… employee-person. All according to rule, custom, schedule. Nothing out of the ordinary going on here, nothing whatsoever.

He certainly is _not_ feeling the bile rise the longer the face and voice keep violating the quiet, private, work-free space he laboriously carved out for his Doctor. His Doctor who is in a fragile, fragile place, who needs _rest_ , and _distance_ , and who can normally chew up the likes of Walters and spit out the bones but who _right now_ is having such a rough time with emotional regulation he definitely cannot handle this starched collar _asshole_ always finding a way to push his b—

“Certainly, sir,” Stone says for the third time in a row, feeling his eyes straining to roll. “Of course we’re following schedule, Commander. No issues at all.”

“ _It’s storming pretty bad over there, isn’t it? Nothing’s going to short out, I hope. We don’t want another...”_ A pause for one-handed air quotes, _“_ event _like in 2004.”_

 _Wasn’t even me,_ Robotnik taps in Morse code on the arm out of sight and within reach.

“Certainly not,” Stone assures all three of them, as the Doctor whispers a command into a wall panel and manually slows down the device’s signal. “Oh no, Commander, you’re breaking up. Can you still hear me? I’m going audio-only on my side, that should help.”

“… _just don’t give me a 2004, is all I’m asking. God knows how long that took to sort out.”_

Stone re-positions himself, now that Walters can’t see into the room. Robotnik leans slightly against him in shared hope for a short one. Stone _almost_ dares to relax a fraction, before remembering that Walters used a damn _override code_ for this. There’s no way he’s getting out of it without wanting to gnaw his arm off like a coyote.

“Everything’s under control,” he repeats delicately. “Is that why you called?”

Walters’ face stiffens a little, as it tends to do when he stops faffing about and cuts to the chase. _Here we go._

“ _Ahh, well, not quite. Good work, Stone. Put Robotnik on the line,”_ he orders. “ _I need a word with him about some alterations the Department requested.”_

Against his side, Robotnik gives a choked gasp.

Of course, it happened before to have a project pulled at the last minute. Usually budgeting or legal issues, someone overpromising & underdelivering and getting the boot for it, limited access to offshore materials due to political entanglements—all of that good stuff. Certainly it’s the lesser evil for it to happen _now_ as opposed to _after_ the official deadline, but still—

“Alterations.”

“ _Yes, something came in just a few minutes ago and I happened to see it first thing… They’ve emailed him_ — _got some automated Out-of-Office response? So they call me next, of course, and I think to myself, that’s weird, it’s almost like he’s trying to make communication_ more _difficult. Imagine that.”_

_Shit. Oh, shit._

“Just to clarify, sir,” Stone interjects, as if through a dream, “alterations to the _current_ project? The project approved during our last session, due for demo and final checks in four weeks? That project?”

“ _Yes_ — _the drones, Stone, that project. What else?”_

 _Oh, Hell no._ In one forceful spiritual yank, Stone rolls down the retail shutters.

“I’m sure you’re aware, sir, but this project is currently in _prototyping_.” When Robotnik presses closer to him, he puts his free arm around his shoulders without even thinking. “It’s an extremely delicate phase. Any change will need to be discussed during our scheduled deadline meeting.”

“ _Appreciated, Stone,”_ Walters says dismissively. “ _Put me through to Robotnik now, will you?”_

Stone considers the risks. He knows all there is to know about asserting oneself to superiors, and he’s positively _dying_ for a frontal charge. But he—after all just an Agent—doesn’t have the leverage for it against Commander _Fucking_ Walters _._ The repercussions could be… a pain to deal with.

But he considers himself the first line of defense, the drawbridge to the Doctor’s fortress, and if Walters thinks he can cross him so easily...

“The Doctor is not available right now,” he intones, channeling his smoothest Andy Sachs. “He’s working, and cannot be disturbed. I’m happy to take a message and mail you his response.” In a slightly firmer tone, he adds, “And of course, if alterations are approved and there’s a new prototype do make, budget and timescale will need to be revised at deadline, too.”

Walter’s mouth scrunches up in confusion.

“ _Stone, what—there’s a whole month before that! He’s always been onboard with ad hoc changes—what is all this about? What tantrum is he throwing now?”_

Stone preemptively mutes their side, but all that comes out of Robotnik is a faint, wounded sound. Not indignation, not anger. Just a sad little wheeze.

The Agent closes his eyes, envisioning himself as a wall primed with anti-climb paint.

“Absolutely none, the Doctor is hard at work as per schedule. I’m sure you’ve noticed the improvements, since we changed our approach? The lack of property damage and lawsuits from defenestrated psych eval specialists?”

 _That was one time!,_ the Doctor taps out, hard enough to make his arm sting.

“ _Yes, well, he_ has _been a lot more manageable, since we put you there,”_ Walters huffs, conceding the point. “ _I’m sure it’s grueling work, Stone. Makes us all wonder if you have a secret past as a wildlife wrangler.”_

He laughs. It’s his favorite joke. Well, one of them. Another favorite is any variation of calling Stone a chew-toy, but fate might be merciful and spare them that one today. Stone submits to a few mortifying seconds of fake-laughing along, looking up to the ceiling and gently rubbing the Doctor’s shoulder in silent apology. Thunder rumbles, far too many miles away to put them out of their misery.

He manages a faint, “I have no complaints.”

“ _That’s good to hear. That man was starting to burn through_ my _damn reputation once he was done with his own.”_ A curt, disapproving sigh. “ _Upkeep was getting too expensive, even for someone leading our busiest market_ — _brilliant, of course, but damn expensive. All a matter of pros and cons with these things, Stone, and not everyone up here is as foresighted as I am. Or as open-minded. Get what I mean?”_

“Perfectly, sir,” Stone lies, a number of alarm bells going off in his head.

“ _In any case, it’s a relief that you’re holding up for now. I think you’re the first to make it to the two year mark. Nevertheless, if he gets too much to handle, you know the protocol. Stick it in your report, we’ll give that leash a good sharp tug.”_

He feels the Doctor shudder. Then, perhaps sensing the concealed exhaustion in his voice as Stone assures him there’s no need, Walters leaps back to the offensive, determined to make Robotnik talk to him.

“Unfortunately, the Doctor is not available,” Stone repeats, toneless. _Be a wall. Be a wall. Be a wall._ “Time, so valuable and always so scarce, as we always say. The earliest he has for a meeting is…” He struggles for a moment to call the calendar to mind, “the 18th?”

Walters scoffs, as if outraged. “ _I’m sure you have no say in this madness, Stone, but please relay that this is a_ huge _disappointment.”_

His tone. His fucking _tone_.

Stone doesn’t know how he does it, doesn’t know if this man is skilled enough at manipulation to do it out of calculated sadism, or if he simply stumbled on this specific paternal inflection and stuck with it, after witnessing the results it yields.

What Stone does know is that Robotnik flinches against him as if he’d been slapped.

 _Please get angry,_ Stone begs in his mind, selfishly praying for a scrap of normalcy. _Get furious. Grab me, scream at me. Tell him where to stick those alterations._

_(Show me you’re still there.)_

“… it’s just never enough, is it?” Robotnik murmurs instead, a terrible emptiness in his voice, as soon as Stone mutes their side.

 _I expect a call back by End of Day at the latest…,_ Walters goes on rambling. _Unacceptable, disappointing, after all the times I’ve stuck my neck out for him..._

Robotnik slowly lowers his head onto his shoulder in defeat, his unguarded heart taking all those knives in to the hilt.

And there, squeezing tight as if trying to keep the Doctor’s spirit from leaving his body, Stone feels the resolution forge inside him.

This is not the way it goes.

It doesn’t end with the Doctor once again yoked and bent to their wishes, with his Agent standing aside and letting it happen. It doesn’t end with all this effort and progress and fragile trust built for nothing, meaning nothing. It doesn’t end with all his promises made hollow.

Stone grits his teeth, biting back the snarl that wants to come out. He doesn’t need anger. He needs cold, ruthless clarity. He needs the right words in the right order, he needs to outplay Walters at his own game.

And _oh_ —what wouldn’t he give to get it _right._

For his tone to be so sharp, his rebuttal so brimming with righteousness as to reach deep into Walters, grab a hold of his humanity, shake it into shape. Make him realize what he’s done to his foundling Prometheus, make him feel _ashamed_ of his actions. All the routes Robotnik could have taken, all the corners of the world he could touch and elevate. _But he works for you. And all these years, you kept him chained to that rock. You disrespect him and take what he does for granted. You’re killing him, and you don’t even notice._

And in that split-second fantasy he—matching Heracles by any other name—gets it so right that this one conversation spawns a revolution of understanding and artistic freedom. And he presents it to his Doctor, kneeling, in a jewelry box with a red ribbon and a dozen Belgian truffles. No more stress, no more heartbreak, only the refulgent joy of discovery, of potential fully realized. _Doesn’t it make your heart race, Stone? Can you feel it?_ A whole new world in his cupped palms. Finally, a worthy offering.

 _God_ , he could cry. Like heroin to the ego, that kind of satisfaction. A heady, semi-orgasmic stupor.

But, beautiful as it would be, Stone knows he can never win this game with the steps out of every _How to ask for a raise_ LinkedIn guide, boiling down to _know your worth and have a plan_. He cannot win by championing the rights of someone they barely consider a human being.

Because Walters _knows_ he couldn’t ask this of anyone else on payroll, he _knows_ the request is in breach of contract, he _knows_ he can only do this because it’s been the way of things for so long it became the norm.

No, this battle is fought at a much lower level, and Stone’s unafraid to get his boots mucky. Here and now, in this world, every change and right and improvement must be fought for, inch by exhausting inch.

 _C’mon, give me something,_ Stone thinks, his addled mind finally lucid, coolly scanning Walters’ spiel for anything useful. _Come on, you old bastard. Give me something I can use._

“… _he has to find a way to make it work,”_ Walters is saying, still going, “ _and I’m sure the agreements with your contractors can be renegotiated, as well as...”_

A lone _blip_ goes off on the searching sonar of Stone’s mind. _Our contractors?_

“He doesn’t _know_?” he asks, muting the line as Walters rambles on, whipping his head around so fast it makes the Doctor yelp. “All these years, and they don’t know you work alone—they don’t know how it _works?_ ”

Robotnik gives him raised eyebrows, a hint of a shrug. “You think anyone other than you is privy to my process? I’m not that kinda scientist.”

A pause. A shared helpless snort.

Finally. _Finally something._

“Commander, you know we’d be on it right away, if we could,” Stone says, swiftly unmuting when he senses it’s his turn to speak, slipping into skilled deflection. “It’s simply a matter of _logistics_.”

“ _Logistics, you say?”_

“Indeed. Regrettably hard to find matching foresight here, too. Not everyone can work as quickly as the Doctor, or adapt to changes with the same can-do spirit, I’m sure you’ve had the chance to observe it elsewhere.”

“ _Ah, politicians are a special breed, for sure.”_

Stone represses a sneer, guarding that spark of camaraderie like a wilderness camper guards his fire. “I’d imagine. But despite these differences, we must respect those time commitments—and rest assured the time will be used as productively as possible on our side.”

The combined effect of non-confrontational _nosism_ and muddled corporatese works like a charm.

The narrative shifts like fine silk through Stone’s nimble hands, and the issue lies no more in the obstinate nature of one (1) unreasonable madman standing between Walters and the unrealistic results he wants, but instead with a whole _structure_ of intersecting hurdles.

The Doctor and his team (!) are on his side, of course—they agree completely, they want to get it done—but alas, it’s out of their hands! They’re doing their best, and we don’t want other PR scandals in the field, do we? We play well with others, just as requested. We care about your _reputation_.

Stone watches in triumph as the Commander’s eyes grow slightly glazed over with bored confusion. _Take that, asshole,_ he thinks viciously. _I’ll bury you._

“ _Right, then,”_ Walters folds with a sigh, a complete shift in tone after a long, tense pause. “ _We’ll reconvene at the meeting on the 1st. I’ll talk to the others. Do what you can on your side, Stone.”_

“We’ll evaluate feasibility and be in touch _ASAP_ ,” Stone says with chilling serenity. “Anything else?”

“ _Of course, I could still drop by and assess the situation_ — _talk it out over_ _brunch, perhaps? Keeping it informal?”_

Stone switches tactics, quickly muting the line again and hushing the dismayed sound the Doctor made, a comforting hand running between his shoulder-blades.

In one voice they mutter, “What’s with this guy and brunch?”

“I wouldn’t get on the road today, Commander,” Stone says, with as much respect as he can fake. “There’s a weather alert out... they might even close the roads.”

Walters tries to nudge a couple more times, but Stone can sense he’s got him. Man hates driving in bad weather, and hates flying if he isn’t piloting. It’s a little surprising, how little it took to find the right way out of this.

But then again, Walters accepted at face value that Robotnik’s proprietary internet connection could be affected by the _weather_ , so hey, take what you can get and run with it.

Stone breathes in, and delivers the final blow. “We know how valuable your time is, sir. We’d _hate_ for you to waste a trip.”

After a few other formalities, the communication is finally cut. Stone slowly drags his now free hand down his face.

It is with a mixture of dread and relief that he respectfully withdraws his touch, and sets himself to wait for the incendiary rage that’s sure to come.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We have all had _that_ Zoom call.
> 
> Chapter title from Hurts' _Unspoken_  
>  [a chatty superior officer is no one's friend.] quote from the eternal _A Tension_ by Inky


	11. Beyond gravel, beyond all - Part 1

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Recalibration

The compound is not the most homey of places, but the light of his personal office has always been a joy in the morning hours. Stone likes getting there early, hot drink in hand, rolling up the shutters. Letting some breeze in.

Fresh air. Turns out Mondays really are alright when you love your job.

A reminder that the presence of love does not connote the absence of challenge.

He sits at his desk, breathing in, squirming slightly in his casual Fridays. He sets a timer, and sets himself to wait. _Just say the word,_ Stone told him. And there it was.

The Doctor is straightforward, but also a man of nuance. The three word difference between _Go away_ and _Go away for ten minutes_ —one a cry for help, the other an actual order—can mean life or death.

And to think that it was all going so well.

_I gave it to him._

Robotnik said it before Stone could even breathe in to ask about the override code.

_For emergencies._

The incendiary rage—safe, familiar—seemed nowhere to be found, and it tilted the world off its axis. Stone, on edge waiting for it and still reeling from the call, kept feeling like he’d missed a step going down the stairs.

 _He insisted,_ Robotnik muttered, sinking into his shoulders under the Agent’s bewildered stare.

 _Oh, Doctor,_ Stone had sighed.

Admittedly, he could have handled it better. He could have said nothing, controlled his tone better. But his whole being felt like it was shaking apart, as if without the cleansing release of a screaming fit, he too were doomed to drown in that sea of overwhelm.

The Doctor’s sharp senses sniffed out the note of disappointment in his voice like a greyhound nose-deep in deer blood.

 _Well,_ he had snapped then, voice gone cold and hard. _We can’t all be prompt and proficient liars, now, can we?_

Armor plates latching shut. Stone had not lasted a single second against that. He couldn’t, not after everything that came before, not in the state he was in.

 _Only when the situation calls for it,_ he gasped, unsteady. Whatever triumph he’d felt at getting rid of Walters fizzled out to nothing. _Only for y… for the right reasons!_

He wanted to reach out, but he couldn’t bear the thought of being slapped away—and worse, he dreaded the unfairness of touch. Perhaps he ought to hold back even from eye contact, he thought. His eyes could be so loud, so revealing.

Then, straightforward yet nuanced, Robotnik told him to scram for ten minutes.

The order numbed Stone over like a shot of lidocaine. His body sorted through the actions on auto-pilot, and in less than a minute he was out the door.

He stopped there a moment, listening. Nothing from the other side, no rustling, no crashes. Not even shouting.

It was only halfway down the stairs that he let the long, ragged sigh pass through him and carry the frustration through his legs, through his lungs and throat, out of his body.

Destabilized, he had to acknowledge the relief of separation, the guilt that came with it.

He did not leave anything breakable in the room with him, Stone realizes, rooted to his desk.

Nothing except...

No, it’s unthinkable.

 _Machines are the one thing he never breaks,_ he reassures himself. _It never happened before. He wouldn’t._

He tries to shake the thought, but it follows him as he gets up to pace the length of his office, sits there with him in silence, as he stares at this new countdown, numbers changing in slow motion.

 _He cannibalizes them for parts, blows them up for testing. They are war machines. A new one can be assembled with the push of a button and a voice command,_ he tries to rationalize. Not for the first time, he thinks maybe he should stop joining in on baby-talking them, for his own sanity. _Why would it be an issue?_

He searches himself for an answer, finding nothing. He has no explanation as to why the idea has any right to be so unbearable.

Because the Doctor loves his machines, of course, but he does not anthropomorphize them like any ordinary fool. They come _from_ him—from the beautiful brain, the exact hands—but he better than anyone knows how much a single unit matters, and how much it does not. Love does not connote the absence of destruction, either, and artists are known to sometimes burn their work.

There’s nothing forcing Robotnik to abide by some arbitrary notion of emotional transfer.

There’s nothing holding him back from breaking the things he loves.

* * *

The instant he sees the Badnik—still pristine and intact, dozing on its charging pad—Stone feels like the _worst_ person alive.

The room is not trashed. Nothing out of place. The Doctor himself, still in bed with the blanket draped over his shoulders, looks like he hasn’t moved at all. The one change is the playlist, a different kind of slow and instrumental, volume low through the eerily quiet air.

“Agent Stone.”

“Doctor?”

Stone is breathing a little heavy, out of place. He ran up the stairs in doubles for as many times as it fit in the given time limit. Enough to calm down, not enough to break a sweat.

Robotnik does not look away from the rain-streaked window. “Do the thing for me.”

Normally excellent at assigning the correct contextual meaning to _thing_ or equivalent, Stone racks his brain in search of the correct variable. This time, dammit, he’s left in the doorway without a clue.

After almost a minute, he succumbs to mortification. “Could you... clarify that, please?”

“An assessment.” Robotnik half-turns, lightly sketching a horizontal zig-zag line in the air. “For outbursts and episodes and such. The little graph thingie.”

“Oh...? Oh!” Stone’s back snaps straight. “You want to do one now?”

“Yes.”

Feeling horribly stupid, he forces out, “About… the call?”

“About this tailend, and how it’s going so far.”

Stone walks into the room as if wading through knee-high water. It takes him all he has to sit on the bedside chair with composure rather than collapsing on it.

“… are you sure?”

An unsubtle huff blows the Doctor’s hair away from his forehead, and Stone shuts his mouth and scoots the chair closer. Tablet in hand, syncing data from the wrist device, he gets to work.

“Compared to past data... this crash has been one of the hardest so far, physically.” Stone clears his throat, not daring a glance up. “However, recovery is improving both time-wise and quality-wise. Now, we’ll add the call to the disruption factors… so if it happens again we can be prepared.”

“Do that.”

Tentative, he pitches his voice and asks, “Can you... describe how it impacted your mood?”

Dr. Robotnik discharges a sequence of numbers at him, and a graph emerges under Stone’s typing fingers.

Each value indicates the broad-stroke intensity of a specific feeling, flow of emotion made numberic value. It’s not all math, of course, but it’s always amazing how much can be synthesized into numbers. Not a reduction, but a translation. Just as warm as language, helping him breathe a little easier.

Stone used to have to ask about them one by one, take guesses and give pointers on how to identify each feeling. Now, as they’re always asked in the same order, ten questions got summarized into two. What the practice lost in grounding ritual it gained in efficiency. Compromise.

“Overall, the overarching is _Resounding_ _Resignation_ ,” Robotnik says, not a glance to it. “There was a wave of _Existential Futility_ , and one of _Paranoid Panic,_ which have now subsided.”

The Agent stares at the graph, taking in what’s there, what is missing. What does this mean? Did Commander Walters _break_ him—is this unnatural calm the start of another depressive phase?

_... Paranoid Panic._

“I’m—about earlier,” Stone dares, awkwardly circumventing the apology. “I take responsibility for the call. It disrupted your recovery, and it shouldn’t have happened.”

“Stone.”

“An Out-of-Office notice? What was I _thinking_ —“

“No, Stone, we talked about it, I approved it...”

“ _Let’s make a plan_ , I said. _They’ll have to respect such a plainly put message,_ I said. Might as well have _scheduled_ the damn meeting. I should have known...”

“You’re an _optimist_ , Stone, it was to be expected. If anyone should have known, it was me.”

Stone sighs, the heel of his hand pressed to his eye. “… I can’t believe you had to hear all that.”

“No, no, I wanted to,” Robotnik insists. “Always enlightening, how people talk about you when they think you’re out of earshot. ‘S good intel.”

There he goes, Stone realizes. Breaking like a dam, roping the Doctor into reassuring him that he’s not as terrible at his job as he feels. Putting a strain on that odd placidity. Dammit.

“No idea how you can stomach it.”

“I usually don’t. But it was about time I put out something that scared them a little, right? They were getting way too comfortable. The _one_ perk of this job is all the poor little apes shitting the diaper whenever I walk through a door. Makes my day every time.” A beat. “And the funding.”

“And the funding,” Stone echoes. “Only for what suits them, though. Gets a bit dull.”

“It _does_ get a bit dull. Ah, that reminds me, gimme that.” He grabs the tablet from Stone’s slack hands. “Let’s see what in the Hell they want me to change this time.”

“… Doctor,” the Agent exhales in a protest so feeble he’s almost ashamed of it.

“Hah, funding issue. The irony,” Robotnik sneers, already skimming the emails. “I can get it done by tweaking the programming. And cherry-picking those upgrades. Which is tragic, but I was expecting _something_ to go wrong, so it doesn’t count.”

As Stone is left wondering what bizarro world he stepped into when he came through the door, Robotnik gives him back the tablet and turns his attention to the drone.

“Heard that~?” he coos at it, waking it from sleep-mode. “They need you a _teensy_ bit more stupid. Being a smarty-pants is too expensive, you see? Guess I’ll build some charging docks, and that you’ll be the only one equipped with my super-special whistle trick. _Yes, you~”_

It’s not the fact that the mood has flipped yet again. That’s pretty standard. No, it’s the smile.

Stone looks at it and he has to acknowledge the gap in his data. Where there’s usually a big, sharp spike, now they have a valley. Robotnik slips his arms out of the blanket to tap playfully on the machine’s camera, revealing the fresh bandage on his inner elbow that Stone did not put there.

Immediately, he crumbles.

“Doctor, what about... anger?” he asks, sticking the proverbial fork in the electrical socket. “Destructive urges?”

It’s the smile. It’s that serene, eerily warm radiance that he’s seen only in his tailend nightmares.

He looks up from the screen in the answering silence, meeting the Doctor’s eye, a slow shake of his head. Stone glances between him and the graph a few times, until the mustache quirks up at his incredulity.

“Within normal parameters.”

The graph is nothing Stone has seen so far, and neither is the look in his eyes.

“I... don’t understand. You seem… calmer than you’ve _ever_ been,” Stone says. “… did you tweak your IV solution?”

Robotnik snorts. “Minor alterations only. No CBD, if that’s what you’re asking.”

There goes the last rational explanation.

“I’m lost,” Stone admits. “Why did you want to do one of these, if you’re not feeling out of control? I don’t...”

He studies the assessment, with its _little graph thingie_ , the picture it paints.

“I… this—was it for _me_?” he asks in a daring whisper, barely breathing, throat suddenly dry. “So _I_ can calm down?”

When he dares to look up, he meets a slightly broader grin. “Why, is it working?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Scrambled eggs, scrambled stones.
> 
> Chapter title from _Beauty in the Mundane_ by Bird Of Figment feat. Cody Francis


	12. Beyond gravel, beyond all - Part 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Monologue.

_(Yes,_ I surrendered to the admission after a too-long pause.

_Yes, it did work. But… now I don’t know which way is up._

_Good, good. I thought so,_ you said.

_You always did seem to find some sort of peace in dissecting me.)_

“It’s not good for your health, you know, all that repressing,” Robotnik says, in the factual tone of someone speaking from experience. “Can’t have you restrain your temper all the time and stroke out on me at the ripe old age of 45. We still have so much to do.”

“Repress—wait, my temper? I don’t have a _temper_.”

The Doctor leans in, flicks his lapel against Stone’s chest. “No? Then neither do I.”

Stone feels like the bottom has fallen out of his stomach.

“Is this… about the override code? Because if something I did gave the impression that I was _angry_ at you—”

“No, no. It’s about how you were trying to set Walters on fire with your mind, Agent.”

Oh. _Oh._ “What… what gave me away?”

“Nothing. Just a feeling.” Two hands flutter in a vague gesture. “The vibe.”

Again, Stone is grateful for the chair under him. “Doctor, you could… really just _feel_ that? How?”

Robotnik gives a harsh scoff, rubbing the corner of his eye again.

“I can feel… _everything,_ ” he spells out. “Somehow this seems to be coming as a surprise to you, Stone, but every single day on this lil’ blue marble a disgraceful amount of my unspeakably valuable time and processing power gets wasted on _filtering_.”

He glances at him, herding his attention, checking if he’s following.

“Filtering,” Stone echoes, to indicate that yes, he’s indeed following.

“What is just _noise_ , what is a _threat_ , what very rare instance could potentially yield one minute spark of _useful_.”

In a slight hardening of the eyes, his smile turns a little bitter, more familiar.

“As if a broken tooth were a person. Nerves, just _there_ , out in the open. So _messy_ , such a waste of time. So much easier—being on my own and not having to deal with any of it. And I swear, Stone,” he says, with a growing edge of frustration, “I swear, if my blithe disposition leads you to think I take any of this lightly—”

It’s like the atmospheric pressure increased a tenfold. In a cloud-parting revelation, Stone sees how thin the veil is. He could summon the anger, if he wanted. Say the wrong thing on purpose and pull it out of thin air, coax it to come out like a shy animal. He could call the storm to him, and then it would all be easier, simpler.

Revulsion strikes through him the instant the idea crosses his mind.

He shakes his head and leans forward, his hand wordlessly offered, immediately taken. Holding space for him to go on.

“All of this—letting you this close. Letting you play knight in a pressed suit. Letting you lecture me about _boundaries_ like I’m five years old. Do you think it takes no effort? Do you think I don’t know how it’s _supposed_ to work?” He huffs, pressing Stone’s hand against his cheek, almost too hard for comfort. “That functioning in this world means nothing but doing things you don’t want to do and lying to hide it?”

Still not fully recalibrated, Stone feels himself cave under the pressure, start to fade into the marrow of his bones, where his training lives. His shoulder twitches with the memory of the last time he had to retreat there. Pristine and detached, his Agent mind, away from this garbled mess, this chaos of muddled borders.

But Robotnik will not have it. He grabs him by the shirt so forcefully the Agent sways with it.

“No. Don’t you _dare_ hide from me now,” he hisses, as direct as a slap.

Stone’s other hand comes up unbid to cradle his Doctor’s face, give him anything he might need as long as this stops. Holding on.

“I’m your Agent.”

“Then come back here. Could you do this, if you were lying to me?” He meets his eye as Stone’s thumbs imploringly brush his cheekbones, staring into him. “Could you bear it? Hold me like your newborn, dry my tears, and lie to my face? Could you be my Agent, and lie to me?”

Agent Stone makes himself meet those razor-eyes, surrenders to the agony of being pried open, seen.

“There were… the reports, at the start,” he forces out, because omission doesn’t count as lying. “You can read the one I sent this morning. We made the template together after project kickoff. That’s all there is. I’m on your side, yours alone.”

Stone lets himself be tugged until he is on that bed again, wincing as he bruises his shin on the frame.

“Monologue incoming,” Robotnik warns. “If it puts you to bed I'll consider it a success. Do you remember Gary Belcher?”

Once again, the bike of Stone’s mind catches on the tram tracks of another sudden shift, and he accidentally bumps the drone while adjusting his legs.

He pats it in apology, hushing the indignant beeping. “The school bully…?”

“The last fight I lost.” The bully, the black eye. One of many incidents. “His father came to the school and argued for him. And I argued for myself. And no matter how eloquent I was, no matter I was half his son in years and size, no matter he was known as _the_ school bully—kid was in hospital and I was his _enemy,_ and he would not stop until he had crushed me. And he did. I was expelled. Did I ever tell you that?”

Stone, trying to find the threads in this, slowly shakes his head. “No, never. That’s terrible.”

“Right there, I learned that justice, much like law, is arbitrary. And… it made me wonder how it would be like, to have someone in my corner. How it would feel.” He gives him a look. “I wondered that until 537 days ago.”

Stone cannot boast the same ability to recall any date at will, but he does remember this one. November 9th. Half a year on the job, starting to find his feet around the high-profile stuff, starting to understand how it all worked. Starting to be allowed in on meetings, to witness the way their handlers spoke to and of Robotnik.

 _We haven’t made progress in more than 30 minutes of discussion,_ he had said, eyeing how Robotnik seemed about to keel over from stress and low blood sugar after spending two hours of his precious time _arguing_ instead of getting stuff done. _Why don’t we break for coffee, and reconvene?_

Stone looks away, absently scratching the back of his neck. “I thought someone was going to take me out back and shoot me.” As soon as the words are out, a panicked huff of laughter bubbles out on its own. “You looked so bewildered. I thought my time had finally come."

The Doctor’s only response is a pensive nod, a lull in the conversation that makes Stone wonder what direction is it going to swerve next.

"It does not go unnoticed,” he says after a good couple of minutes, “how much you try to help. It never has. It's not something I’m—especially familiar with, or something I will ever take for granted. So, know that."

“Oh.”

“You don’t get to claim first, though. Kind of implausible, meeting nothing but horrible people for half a century. I’m already an orphan, come on. No, there have been instances.”

Robotnik looks up and, honest to god, starts listing them. One hand is enough, and it makes Stone’s chest ache.

“The fellow freshman that moved her bag to let me sit on an October morning,” he says. “The extra slice of chocolate cake a classmate’s mom cut me at that one birthday party. Dr. Clarke, who tucked away his glasses and paused there a moment, and said my dissertation was _inspiring_.” A pause, an audible sigh. A gaze so far away that for a moment it feels unreachable. “He said, _kid, you’re going to take us places._ I would have moved into that office. Mostly, I liked to be called _kid_. He died in ‘77. Didn’t see me graduate.” He offers Stone a slight smile, full of that _Resounding Resignation_. “People leave, disappoint, or die.”

“… I’m sorry it’s been like this,” Stone says, hollow and intense at the same time.

And his Doctor looks at him, looks through him, as if he could see that something he just swallowed, buried down and deep to make it shut up.

Speaking directly to that part, and that alone, he says, “Come here.”

He didn’t say _come under the covers._ He didn’t say it. But letting his instinct move him before his higher brain functions can start wailing like sirens, Stone lifts the weighted blanket and scoots under. He gets into that bed like he’s eight years old and he has to dash back from the bathroom before the monsters get him.

_(Do you remember them, the robin’s egg walls of your infanthood, the smell of your first bed?)_

With the hastiness of it, he bumps into the Doctor’s bare shoulder. Startling warmth, but he is the one to flinch away.

“Come here,” Robotnik says again in that voice that strikes through him and pulls, like Mayhem’s harpoon. “Nice, isn’t it? Like a slumber party. Always looked so fun. You know, I used to worry that attachments were inevitable. That sooner or later there would be someone who always gets it, someone I wouldn’t have to over-explain every little thing to, someone who would be in my corner… and I’d turn into an imbecile at their first smile. Let it cloud my reasoning. The kind of ever-implausible fantasy that dies mid-thirties.”

Tentative, Stone scoots closer. His heart beats like a war drum, yet the Badnik does not detect the threat.

“And how irresponsible would it be to let it happen now, after all this time? After I’ve built everything I am on my solitude? It would ruin everything. Weaken me, distract me, hinder my progress. But here it is. Maybe it was inevitable, after all. And here I am, letting you in. Like an imbecile.”

_(Do you remember what it felt like, being small enough to fit in two cupped hands?)_

“But things are nothing but _better,_ and that’s even worse.”

 _Do you hate me?_ cries something small and whiny inside him. The part of him that dreams of open markets, of pensive soaks, of crackling fireplaces in cottages lost in the wilderness.

Instead he asks, “How is it worse?”

“I know improvement when I see it. Otherwise I wouldn't be where I am, and neither would you. And that means I’m better _with_ you than without. I should be rid of you, but what relief is where you aren’t? It’s _soul-_ _crushing_.”

_Soul-_ _crushing._

“Am I _using_ you?” his Doctor asks him, falling out of his monologue and into presence, catching him unprepared. “For comfort, for betterment—are you an instrument to me, a tool, no different than my modeling software, than the 5/16" wrench I used this morning?”

He tries, “I… I can be.”

“I think you can aim a little higher.”

“I’m… your Agent,” Stone defaults, like the coward he is. “Yours.”

“Are you giving me the responsibility of your being?”

“I don’t know,” he gasps, terrified. “Please, I don’t know.”

Everything pauses for a moment, mercifully, as Stone gets his breathing under control.

“Nevertheless, it’s not something I can deny or ignore,” Robotnik continues. “I didn’t get where I am by denying hard facts I don’t like.”

“But why does it matter?” Stone asks, a little callous, feeling the weight of it land into him like a punch to the gut. “Why is it _irresponsible_ , if I’m here, I’m here and—you _have_ me.”

“You cannot promise me that. No one can. I’ll have to risk it.”

The realization of what Robotnik just told him takes a while to get to him, rumble of thunder catching up after the lightning strike. There are parts of him he’ll never be able to see into. But Stone would give anything—anything—to meet his eye and let him find what he is so desperately looking for. That spark of sameness he wrecks himself over and over to earn. The someone in his corner, the inevitable attachment. Something selfish in him whines like a lost dog, torn apart with greed, with yearning.

“I don’t ever want to be _noise_ to you,” Stone says softly. “I’m s-”

“ _Don’t_ apologize.”

“Right. Right. Be better.”

Baby steps. It takes time to see how _close_ cannot mean _same,_ not even for ordinary people. Not even a clone, a twin, an AI copy—nothing can fix that fundamental separateness. The guilt that comes with it.

“No.” His Doctor shakes his head. “Just be.”

* * *

Robotnik’s hands have wandered to his shoulder, circling back to their anchor.

"There it is." His surgeon's fingers find the knot of scar tissue under the thin fabric of his shirt. "This is where they broke you."

He says it like the mere presence of something broken, there in this bed of new things built and found, caused him pain.

"It's old," is all Stone can say.

His Doctor traces it with such sorrow and tenderness it threatens to re-break him right then and there.

"All wounds are old," he murmurs. Stone's eyes well up against anything he tries to prevent it.

He falls in, telling himself he can, he's doing this to help Robotnik feel less embarrassed about his own breakdown, he can, _please let me have this_ —then, he is pulled in and wrapped up, held like a new machine, sinking into that warmth.

“Doctor,” he chokes out. He's never felt so cherished. Not in a long, long time.

“Yes. I’m here. We’re here.”

_(Do you remember what it was like, feeling so safe?)_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter title from _Beauty in the Mundane_ by Bird Of Figment feat. Cody Francis


	13. If there's moonlight pulling the tide

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Talking shop in bed, as one does.

It’s not the music that wakes him.

It’s not the light either, as a big one strikes outside and the room flashes daybright, nor the pleased purr of the generators absorbing the power surge. Not even the light tap of a bare foot keeping tempo against his socked ankle.

It’s the emptiness. Pulls him right up and through, from a place deep, deep underwater, with a sense of _Now,_ _isn’t this unusual_ as his mind wanders the soft black dreamscape.

He breathes awake to a world of nestling warmth, of fingers tracing paths in his hair. To nails light against his scalp, the nape of his neck, sending shivers down to the tips of his toes. To something entirely too good to be real.

“… am I dead…?”

The hand crawls a few inches, a light press on his carotid artery. A count to one, two, fifteen.

“Nope.”

Stone's eyes feel glued shut, but he isn't sure he wants to get them open, anyway.

It is so dark and quiet, there in his sleeping mind. So empty of the usual tailend anguishes, the familiar not-quite-nightmares. The deep pressure had become so soothing. Now, the low sound of their voices sets the too-good world into uncanny reality, pulling his awake-brain up from the depths where it lagged behind for a blissful handful of moments.

Slowly, slowly, he realizes he’s pressed flush into the Doctor’s right side. Close, closer than _reasonable_ , his arm slung shamelessly across Robotnik’s chest, leg hooked over his. His right eye opens just a crack, not averse to compromise. Right between the Doctor’s neck and shoulder, a half-moon of reddened skin, from his face resting there, pressing in its weight and shape.

As consciousness seeps in inch by inch, set to rob him of every joy, he wants nothing but to fit himself there—right there, where it’s warm—and not look up for a week.

He gets it now, what his Doctor meant with _spoiling a greedy thing._

Perhaps, the tension in him travels enough to be evident. Perhaps, there’s just no hiding from this man.

No other explanation for the hushing sound the Doctor makes, for the way he one-handedly tucks the blanket up on Stone’s shoulder and pulls him in even closer. The hand then resumes its too-good scratching, and Stone’s mind sinks leaden back into its soothing depths.

“… ‘s it late?” he manages after some time.

A head-shake, more felt than seen. “Still morning. A by-the-book catnap, thirty min tops.”

“Seemed much longer.”

“Oh, couldn’t have woken you if I tried.” He gestures, encompassing the music, the drone’s open top panel, and the holoscreen he’s been typing on via the tablet. “Must have needed it, hm?”

“It’s… it was the best sleep I had in a while.”

Stone doesn’t tell him how long.

“… you’re _working_ ,” he realizes, after a stretch of typing quiet. He feels the chest under his arm expand with a sigh.

“Observant as always, although incorrect.”

“Doctor.”

“Nuh-uh,” Robotnik _tsks_ when he feels him think about moving. “Don’t even try. You’re like a perfect little space-heater. Travel-sized. Stay right there.”

It is possible to take it as a compliment, if he tries. A surprising amount of things he says are not too hard to take as compliments.

“But Doctor—”

“I’m _chilling_. Tweaking this and that, testing stuff, having fun. I know I don’t _have_ to. Now shush, back to blissful unconsciousness with you.”

Robotnik doesn’t ask him about earlier. Nothing about the breakdown, nothing about the scar or the mission that gave it to him. Perhaps he knows all there is to know, perhaps he doesn’t find the inner workings of his Agent’s mind interesting enough, perhaps he doesn’t need to dissect in order to see. Stone wonders, on a scale of 1 to 10, how hypocritical of him it is to appreciate it.

So, he shuts his mouth. It’s not everyday that Robotnik wants him close (so very close) while he’s wor—while he’s _chilling,_ after all.

He watches him weave code one-handed through half-lidded eyes, occasionally pausing to consider alternatives, kneading absentminded little circles into his Agent’s scalp. The thumping of his heart, strong and steady against his cheek, makes Stone feel pleasantly heavy all over, the contours of him defined by the arm holding him together, by the absence of space between them. He is aware of his body—in all its simple animal warmth, all its simple greed—in a way he hasn’t let himself be in years.

 _Y_ _ou’re good at this, too,_ he thinks, full of awe and disbelief. _Of course you are. You goddamn miracle._

He keeps quiet, but he doesn’t try too hard to hold in the blissed-out sigh that escapes him.

“You are so good,” he hums once the holoscreen has swished away, once the focus has drifted, direct in the safety of their shared space, of his own near-drunk drowsiness. “At… things. So, so good.”

A little snort. A skip in the steady beat. “Oh, am I?”

“Uh-huh. Just wonderful.”

For all his aposematism, in private Robotnik is a master at praise deflection. _There’s a flaw,_ he says. _Only an idiot would praise something so flawed_. Perhaps won over by Stone’s unguarded earnestness, this time he yields to it, looking away with his cheeks pinked.

“… even half-asleep, you are not parsimonious with your praise.”

“I mean it, though. When I’m awake too. I always mean it.”

Robotnik sets the tablet aside, stretches his arm slightly to close the drone’s panel. His fingers graze the perfect line, that impeccable edge, the built-in flaw that traces the machine's destiny from their quiet scrap of present to the end of if its life, dreadful in its predetermination.

_(This is my gift, this is my legacy.)_

Stone extends his arm too, reaching, their tracing hands meeting on the shallow groove concealing the drone’s guns. Stone tilts his head where it rests, looking at them lingering side by side, the slight contrast they make, both long and a little knobbly. The Doctor’s gnarly cuticles to his meticulously manicured ones. Pink undertone to amber.

“I don’t know how you do this every time,” he says, a bit more awake. “Creating something you’re so proud of, putting your whole heart into it—when you can _feel_ them taking both you and the project for granted.”

Robotnik gives a sneer-snort kinda sound, sharp and sarcastic.

“Betterment cannot be uncoupled from sacrifice, can it?” He looks out into the distance, eyes unreachable, set with an edge of defensiveness. “This circus of dum-dums has to move forward, somehow. And it’s on me to see to it.”

Stone lets his pinkie trace a dorsal vein, now raised with the restored fluids, still mesmerized with its bareness. Robotnik’s hand dips to trace lower, to the edge of the charging pad, then up under Stone’s palm. He leaves it to Stone to take a step and lace their fingers together, like an extension of the gesture, and does not pull back.

“It... shouldn’t be all on you.”

“But it is.”

All Stone can do is hold on, squeeze that hand tight, and wonder if this is what it would feel like to be a twin. _(Identical, not fraternal, there would still be a wall there, still a separation.)_ To feed from the same lifeblood, to come into the world together and know you’re destined to go out separate. Being the same, and yet not the same—two units from the same batch, uniquely important and at the same time, expendable.

“It’s on me, too. I wouldn’t want to be anywhere else than here, making history with you.”

Somehow he’s done it. The stare Robotnik fixes him with, this time, is wide-eyed with alarm.

“Doctor…?” Stone lifts his head, now fully awake. He’s always been an overly-honest drunk. “Uh, naturally I didn’t mean to imply I’m part of it as much as you… I’d give myself a 12 percent to be gen—”

“NATURALLY,” Robotnik shouts, shattering the whisper-quiet, vigorously shaking their joined hands. “It might not look like it, Stone, what with my superhuman levelheadedness and whatnot—but THIS IS A RATHER PRECARIOUS STATE! I’VE BEEN _TRYING_ , BUT I’M NOT AS _IMPERVIOUS_ TO YOUR _PRÉVENANCE_ AS I NORMALLY AM! IT’S AFFECTING ME!”

“Oh, I… should I shut u—?”

“ABSOLUTELY NOT!”

There’s… something different here. Some ephemeral sense of finiteness. Like the first time you make a kill, a moment you can’t come back from. He tastes again that freeing feeling, the ease of having someone he can tell, _I adore working with you and spending time with you,_ say it earnest, free of implications.

Cautiously, he lets go of Robotnik’s hand to draw his arm back across his chest, gently gathering him close. He watches the outburst fizzle out of him as quick as it came.

“Doctor.”

“ _Yes.”_

“You are the most passionate, brave, and hard-working person I know,” he says softly, with careful intensity. “You can make anything out of nothing and you never back down from a challenge. I want to work with you, and assist you in any way I can… ‘til retirement do us part.”

Well. Maybe _some_ implications.

With this as with some other things, Stone’s Doctor dishes it out but cannot take it. At all.

He watches sheer incredulity bloom pink on that expressive face. Robotnik avoids his eyes and lets out a faint, throaty squeak. _Yes, really, you can have this,_ he’d say, if he had the same power to speak into his Doctor’s neglected corners. _It’s for you._ _Let me give it._

Instead, he goes for a stab at levity, “Could do without the damn IVs, though.”

“Ah, yes,” Robotnik mutters, clearing his throat, “your eternal nemesis.”

 _I_ _hate hurting you_ , Stone had blurted out, and it felt like the overstep of the century. But now, armed with implicit permission, he allows himself to speak freely.

“It’s just… such an unnecessary risk. And I hate doing it to you when you’re not fully present to process the whys and hows.”

“Ah.” And after a beat, “You would not have made a very good veterinarian.”

Stone busies himself with the blanket, smoothing the weighted beads in a single layer within the quilting, worrying them under his fingers. Just because he _can_ speak with candor, it doesn’t mean it’s _easy_.

“What I mean is… fasting for mental clarity is one thing, Doctor, but the rest is extreme.”

“An assistant is not a nurse.”

“Sticking an IV is better than hypovolemia and renal failure, for sure, but—every time, I worry I’m… feeding the self-destructive parts of you. Making it all worse.”

“An assistant is not a therapist, either. Physical or otherwise.”

“An Agent is anything you need them to be.” And he does what is needed, no matter how heavy. “Is it really so unfathomable that I want to find a solution that does _not_ make you flinch away from my hands—?”

_Shit. Ah, shit._

Again, the Doctor does not let him flee and hide in shame, after he’s once again spilled all of himself out like the idiot he is. Rather, Robotnik leans in, humming and resting his mouth against Stone’s forehead, taking a moment to think.

“All this time, I’ve been underestimating how much you hate doing them." Stone can feel his over-warm breath fan down on him as he talks, steam from a crucible of a whole different kind. "Would explain your elevated stress levels.”

 _He still has a fever,_ Stone thinks. _S_ _till has a fever, has slept about an hour, hasn’t eaten in a week._ _And I’m here whining about_ _how much_ _his process_ _hurts my fee-fees_ _._ _Great._

“But also, what time was it when _you_ last ate something, huh?”

“About 3 am. Then I had a couple of coffees,” Stone says, speaking and realizing at the same time. “Oh.”

Robotnik lets out a disapproving grunt.

“I ran the numbers during the assessment. With my old ways… this time I’d indeed be dead,” he says, factual, with nothing but a shrug. “I’ve failed to consider this beyond the fact that you keep me alive. I’m unfamiliar with the effects of my process on someone else.” Stone feels a frown form in his tone. “I _don’t like it._ ”

“I might need these routines more than you do,” Stone mutters, speaking to the blanket, unsure by now if he’s stating a fact or looking for reassurance. “I… might not be as effective as I think I am. I really wish I could keep up, the way you need me to.”

“No, no one can keep up. _I_ can’t even keep up. I’ve been pulling the world’s longest con, Agent Stone.” He turns, resting his cheek against his head, rubbing slightly. “I’ve been on this track for so long, hurling away, and there’s a noticeable difference in the way my body is handling it, this year compared to the last.”

 _Okay case scenario,_ _after all_ _._ “We saw that your recovery times are still improving. If we revise the System...”

“I just don’t think there’s a System good enough to reverse my course here, Stone. It’s not on you.”

_It is on me. I want it to be. There must be something._

They are at an impasse. Despite the Doctor’s precarious calm, Stone can sense it’s not wise to press and prod any more into something as delicate and personal as his process. Not a good time to breach the topic of Stone's growing desire to pack and arm his Range Rover, sit the Doctor shotgun, and make a run for it, either.

Tentatively, he steps out on less unsteady terrain. “Sub-contracting for at least _some_ parts would already be a big chunk of work off your shoulders. Companies that care about innovation would queue up to work with you. Longer deadlines and shorter tailends might help."

Robotnik wrinkles his nose. "You know I don’t _decide_ how long the tailends are. Also, making sure things are done the way I need them would mean disclosing some of my patents. Delegating… that’s too much trust to too many all at once. Can’t. Shan't."

"It’s extensive vetting and tight contracts, mostly."

"Ugh."

Legalese, close relative of the bureaucratic word-maze Stone successfully entombed Commander Walters in, is the bane of Robotnik’s existence. It caused him to get roped into a number of predatory deals, back in the pre-Stone era.

"I could take care of it,” Stone volunteers. “Draft up something so airtight they wouldn't have the time to even _think_ about fucking you over. We’ll review it together, make sure everything is the way you want it."

Relief and indignation split the Doctor's face in equal amounts. “I know _words.”_

"Yes. More than anyone, and in more languages than anyone," Stone placates. "It’s not you, it's them. They use them inconsistently and in purposefully obscure ways. Your reasoning is too logical and streamlined for that kinda noise."

Robotnik snaps his jaw. “Are you calling me _simple_?” he bristles.

“I’m calling you _flawless._ ”

He cups one stubbly cheek in his hand, gentle, unfairly seizing the instant fluster that the compliment produces.

“Ugh, we’ll see— _s_ _top it_ _,_ what did I say about spoiling, Stone? Did you even listen to my whole spiel?” He shakes his head in disbelief at Stone’s earnest nod, sniffling once. “You _prefer_ me like this, admit it. A weak, weepy mess, with all my neediness on display. You _monster_.”

He turns, fitting his mouth against his palm, all but nuzzling his hand, shoulders hitching with a suppressed shrug. Stone is close enough to see the dusting of freckles on them, the downy peach-fuzz, how the skin shivers with gooseflesh.

"I wouldn't say I _prefer_ it," Stone murmurs, his thumb gently stroking the ruffled mustache into order. “I know how to deal with anger, barked orders, with violence. It’s what I’ve always known. This is… it’s just different. It asks something much different of me, and I… treasure that. This side of you.”

“… you’re an odd one, Agent Stone.”

“And actually, I'm just taking advantage that your processing power is down 10%. So I can feel a tiny bit smart, for once."

"Ah. Of course." Robotnik nods and settles back, mellowed. “That's all right, then.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Plot twist, they were both touch-starved.
> 
> Chapter title from Vienna Teng's _Enough to go by_


	14. Hold your hair in deep devotion

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Reminder.

“… or you could just _stay_.”

Stone minutely lifts his head, one eye open.

Robotnik had been quiet for so long, the Agent felt compelled to put his head back down and give him a little space, as his nag of a brain insisted he should stop lazying about and get up—cut an apple or something, _anything_ —and Stone did his best to hush it and let himself _just be_. His Doctor asked, after all.

“Stay?”

“Next time. You could just... try and stay.”

Conversations with Robotnik are more tapestry than sequential chapters. They move in multiples, sometimes picked back up after hours or days as if just a few moments had passed. Threads put aside, never lost.

Stone lifts up the rest of the way, both eyes wide open.

“BUT!” A conjunction forcefully spoken, as though interrupting. “I trust you to know I’m not to be disturbed while I’m _focused_ -focused, yes?” An index finger raises, admonishing. “No interrupting for breaks, or sending me to _bed_ , or anything else. Even if you think it’s _time,_ or that I am _destroying myself,_ or _defying God_ —or whatever nonsense.”

Stone opens his mouth. Closes it.

He tries again, too dazed to speak. “Stay… during _tailend?_ With you?”

“In the lab, yes. But… I might not talk to you at all, even though you’re right there. For days, possibly! It’s something that needs to flow, has its own rhythm. My control is limited, so yours is virtually null. But you know this—you were the one to take notes.”

“I—just… are you sure?”

Robotnik rolls his eyes. “Stone, are _you_ sure? I can and I _will_ snap if you say _yes_ and then fuck up.”

“I need to hear it.”

“Would I suggest it, if I weren’t? Don’t I think before saying things? Am I an _ignavo?”_ He glances up, meeting his Agent’s loud stare, and sighs. “Yes, I’m sure. My reasoning’s that we aren’t the same we were two years ago. Cellular renewal aside, I got used to you, I can focus just fine. And you are fully dancing to the rhythm here, you should be able to be of _some_ use, find the right times to suggest… things.”

Stone mentally marks his calendar. This is likely the highest praise he will ever hear in his life.

“Like, to prompt actions?”

A vigorous nod. “Like… getting some water in. Or out. Stop breathing in toxic fumes for five minutes. Liquid meal replacements…? I wanted to design some soon as a side-project, anyway—but I don’t know, haven’t made a plan yet, Stone! I’m being _spontaneous_!”

“Oh no.”

“Let’s just… let’s do an experiment, just you and me. See how far we get.”

“… you’re just fed up with the IVs, aren’t you.”

“I mean, _yeah._ B—“

“I’m in. I’ll do it.”

He gives a helpless, affectionate little squeeze. The Doctor, misplacing intensity as he is known to do, returns it with a _I came to get you at the airport and haven’t seen you in six months_ kind of hug, one hand cradling the back of his head.

Bodies don’t know that evolution happened. With all the warmth one could desire a mere thermostat flick away, now like at the dawn of time, it’s only skin reddening skin that grants us the strongest oxytocin kick.

Stone sighs deep. A man could die of a good thing.

“Y’know…” Stone starts, in a drowsy murmur, yet again a bit drunk with it. He clears his throat and tries again, “You know, you could have coffee _much_ sooner if you did have liquids throughout the week. Celebration special latte, waiting for you piping hot as soon as you’re done. Just saying.”

“A ten for the conducive factors,” Robotnik says, smacking his arms. “Graph it up, Agent!”

Stone laughs, his chest feeling several pounds lighter. “Can’t wait.”

“Would you keep an eye on the lab, too? I hate neglecting maintenance, and incidents have been pretty rare, but…”

“Sure. Always.” Stone nods in that shared space, safe as a secret. “Like they were my own.”

“What are you on about, Stone?”

“Doctor…?”

“ _Stone_. You’ve kept track of their design phases, scouted testing sites, ordered ore and cabling and takeout. You play sounding board at any hour I ask you to. You protect my space tooth and nail, wrangling infernal corporate lingo and keeping these ranked morons in line. Knowing you’re out there keeping guard allows me to get as deep into the work as I need—as close to full potential as this flawed form can allow. And here it is now!” He fondly pats the drone, under the dumbfounded gaze of his Agent. “My most advanced machine to date! You _are_ part of this. They wouldn’t be here without you. They _are_ yours, too.”

He pauses to look at him. Full-face frowns at the idiotic way Stone is certainly looking at him.

“You disagree?”

“N-no, Doctor.”

“Did you just _hesitate?”_

“ _No!”_ He hurries to press the Doctor’s shoulder in what he hopes is an adequate amount of reassurance. “No, I’m just—taken aback. I’m—” He tries for words, but all he has is a vague gesture. “I’m _affected_ too.”

“Ugh, _emotions.”_ Robotnik scoffs, mimicking his gesture. “These are _facts,_ Stone, nothing but cold hard data! Of sub-arctic temp… liquid nitrogen, even! No useless sentimentality whatsoever.”

“Not even a little bit?”

“Alright, _fine_ , maybe a little bit.”

It isn’t easy to take, all this. And maybe, just maybe, the Doctor is having an influence on how Stone allows himself emotion. Because, he feels, the tightness in his chest makes him want to lie down and weep into the drone for a bit, too. It’s waterproof, anyway. If it can face its storms, so can they.

As soon as he’s done thinking it, his eyes start to prickle. _Shit, again?_ He freezes, unsure what to do until the Doctor’s hand finds his face.

He leans up until they’re nose to nose, helpless, into the bare directness of his touch. _(You know there’s nothing to be ashamed of.)_ That familiar position that makes him think back of condensation on a glass panel, back to the day it all started to click.

“We have to be prepared,” Robotnik says. “Give it a couple years, and we’ll start to hear retirement hints. _Senility_ will be the new buzzword when _instability_ and its less PC synonyms run dry.”

Stone swallows emptily, says nothing. He thinks of frost-covered moss, of a fir-scented hearth.

“And if everything else fails,” Robotnik clicks his tongue, mimicking a gunshot with eerie accuracy, “then it’s _decommission_ time.”

“No.” Stone says it and repeats it, his hands coming up in an urgent grasp. “Over my literal dead body.”

There is a quiet huff of laughter. A slow, close press against his front. Defenses, melting, a light year of distance closing, a collision of celestial bodies.

“You know I need you alive, Agent,” the Doctor murmurs, and kisses him light on the forehead.

_(Is gesture a shared language? Does it have grammar, common rules, does it need translation? Does anything mean the same among any two people?)_

Perhaps, once he’s back to himself, it will be equally mortifying to him, having let his Agent dry his wet hair, having held him as tears faded to slumber.

“My titles, degrees, my publications, my machines… they’re the only proof of my passage here. There is no one to leave my legacy to. No childhood home with docile elderly parents and their conveniently empty basement. No hipster sons that will one day half-ass Minimalism and _konmari_ all my precious labor off to the landfill. I’m all that stands between them and vivisection, misuse, destruction. They have no one but me.” He meets Stone’s eyes, the intensity of his gaze near-unbearable. “... and you.”

Deep, right in there. Too much recognition at once, punching the built-up tension out of him like a freight train to the gut. They fall into a hold, over-expressive faces buried in the other’s shoulder. Witnessed and shielded in one simple gesture.

They are anything if not efficient. They are anything if not together.

“Who will protect our little ones, if you don’t survive me?”

A prayer folded inside a question. It could have been an order, but it wasn’t. It was nothing but a question, the last prism of his misanthrope’s trust. Tentative, almost.

Stone struggles to breathe, for a moment unanchored, drowning in the bareness of this feeling. He adjusts to the added weight before it is even placed on his shoulders.

There’s no reason to hate them. Machines don’t have free will. It’s not their fault if they’re always put so much above their creator, if he considers his legacy the only part of himself worth protecting.

“ _We_ will. Me and you, both of us.” Forceful words, spoken warm and earnest into the crook his Doctor’s neck. “On my life.”

* * *

“Is it _ready_ yet?”

“Oven’s been on Keep Warm for the past couple of hours, or so. So, yes.”

“Then why, pray tell, is it not in my mouth yet?”

“I’m waiting to see if the soup keeps down okay, Doctor. Do you feel nauseous at all?”

“Would I be here begging you if I were, Agent? Come _on!”_

There’s a room, rain-light, fresh bread. A secret agent, his mad scientist, a brand new weapon of mass destruction nestled in bed with them. The things they hide, the meals they share.

_(No, no, I want that one. No, I know they’re all the same._

_But I want some of that one. The one you’re holding._

_Some of yours.)_

First morsel of homemade bread, the tastiest Holy Communion.

“This is the _best_ thing on Earth,” the Doctor declares, mouth full, a near-obscene groan.

“You haven’t eaten in a week.”

“I’m aware. My point stands. It’s not tailend without your special specialty.”

Stone grins, looking down, soaking up the praise.

“It’s just a little tradition. A common breakfast food is hardly _special_.”

Robotnik tuts, and gives him _did I stutter_ eyebrows.

“Nu-huh. These are much fluffier than the traditional ones. Flavor is different than anything I ever had in Riyaq, too. More sourdough-y.”

The history is right there, ready to be heard. What it all means, what he thought he’d never have.

The first of six ends up shared. Handmade, hand-broken, a ⅓ to ⅔ ratio. But there’s more, for later. It’s best not to go all at once, even if the Doctor’s eager hands say _rueful hunger striker,_ and his skyward eyes say _religious experience._

It’s so perfect that perhaps, after all, there is no need.

* * *

There’s a room, a lack of sunlight, the smell of fresh bread.

In an ideal world, Stone’s bread would be the first thing the Doctor has on re-entry.

In reality, there are the leftovers of a big Fuji cut into bunny-slices on the bedside shelf, along with two half-empty glasses of cinnamon-infused lemon tea, the empty thermos, a blister of migraine tablets.

Stone can’t wait for them to kick in, to argue over what to watch. For now, he basks in the rare sight of the Doctor’s simplest of satisfactions, propped up on his pillows chewing and wiggling his feet in delight, looking less and less like death warmed over.

 _Almost_ perfect.

If this were perfect—if he could somehow _make it_ perfect—there would be sunlight, too. Glinting off the tea glasses, the drone’s white shell, his Doctor’s fluffy hair.

But maybe it’s a blessing, something else to be grateful for. If this were perfect and there were sunlight, after all, it would bring out all the pretty reds and titians in those coffee-brown locks—and then it would be terribly hard not to push his luck on this. Ask for more than it would be fair, like the greedy thing he is. Ask for it all.

“Stone,” Robotnik calls after him, pulling him from his thoughts. “I’m drowsy again. Come back here.”

No need for a _yessir_. It wasn’t an order. He smiles and follows it all the same.

* * *

_You and me, and the analemma of you, the figure eight you trace in the sky. The restless ways you shift and change._

_You and me, rods planted in the ground. 12 pm sharp, day after day, month after month. I track your graceful oscillation, the imperceptible shifts through Milankovitch cycles. We watch for daylight savings, those pesky leaps. We don’t get distracted._

_You and me, and the years it takes. Not just sailor, but voyager too: the world grew so much bigger than our shallow basin. Ship’s crow, my sky-reader, my compass and sextant. I take this rod, this bit of rope, and you’ll guide me on these unsteady waters._

_There’s so much I don’t know about you, so much still unexplored._

_Easier each time still, charting you like a stormy sea._

_(It was me instead, my own axis tilting through the seasons._

_All along, it was me and my own elliptical orbit.)_

* * *

“Is it okay?”

Being held takes more guts than doing the holding. The Doctor doesn’t answer in words, but he clutches at his forearms like Stone had threatened to leave.

Stone scoots forward a bit then, letting his legs bracket Robotnik’s, pressing flush against his back. The unsure loop of his arms calibrates into a steady hold. Robotnik gives a shaky, breathless gasp, like someone sinking into a too-hot bath.

It is shameless, the opposite of separation. It knows no fear, or the guilt that comes with it. Stone’s head spins. He doesn’t even try to compartmentalize it.

“Oh… that’s— _nice_ ,” Robotnik breathes, clearing his throat. His death-grip lessens in a body-wide effort of relaxation. “… sleep-conducive to a fault.”

“Best part of a slumber party.” He stifles a yawn against a sharp shoulder-blade. “’Scuse me. Can I sleep too?”

“You have to. You’ll wander off otherwise.”

He squeezes back, carefully easing the anxious clutch of Robotnik’s hands, pressing his forehead to the overgrown fade. The tension melts away at his gentle nuzzle, Robotnik going slack in his arms with a deep, long-held sigh.

He has a few days of _this_ to look forward to—makes him wonder if a man can dare to be this lucky.

“Nowhere else I’d rather be, Doctor.”

* * *

The storm is letting up.

Thunder has tired itself out, but the rain has not let up, still pelting down outside over the compound, the TPU glass windows, the roof above them. It can be heard still, in all the in-between places.

A mad scientist, his secret agent. History in the making, purring on its charging pad. The carved-out space for all the unsaid, held safe and hidden until its time comes.

This could be it, Stone thinks, this calm, this afterstorm quiet.

_It could really be it._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Merry Christmas !! This was never meant to be a christmas fic (took hella longer than expected), but we're rolling with it.
> 
> Like a previous fic from 3 years ago, this too came with me through an international move. And it was also my pandemic companion. 
> 
> Recipe for the [magic flatbread of love and devotion](https://www.simplyleb.com/recipe/manakeesh/) (not really, as stone says it’s a common breakfast food skjdn)
> 
> Thank you for reading 💙
> 
> Chapter title from _I wanna be yours_ by Arctic Monkeys


End file.
